U.S. Says NUKING IRAN Is The Only Option, Should The US Intervene？ w⧸ Karys Rhea & Will Thibeau
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 59 minutes
Words per Minute
182.62064
Hate Speech Sentences
174
Summary
In this episode, we debate whether or not we should nuke Iran. We are joined by Will Thiebaud of the Claremont Institute in Washington, D.C. and Karis Rhea of the Epoch Times.
Transcript
00:00:11.000
First, the Goni reported the White House was not considering a nuclear strike on Iran.
00:00:16.000
However, according to Fox News, officials have said they have not ruled out using a
00:00:22.680
According to the Daily Mail, Trump was briefed that the only way to destroy the Iran nuclear
00:00:27.780
facilities at Fordow would be to soften the ground with bunker busters and then drop
00:00:31.880
a nuke to which Trump has reportedly said, yeah, we shouldn't do that.
00:00:36.900
So the assumptions are now that the reason Trump is saying he will wait and make a decision
00:00:42.460
The reason why he's meeting with Steve Bannon and calling Tucker Carlson is that, one, it
00:00:47.280
may be a big ask that we nuke Iran, but actually pull back and say, you know what, we can do
00:00:54.980
But the reality is we just don't know for sure.
00:00:57.320
All we can do is sit back and wait and probably debate amongst ourselves as to what should
00:01:03.760
Before we get started, my friends, we've got a great sponsor.
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00:02:25.700
We got a couple people here to join us in this debate.
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Ma'am, would you like to introduce yourself first?
00:02:33.200
I'm a producer with the Epoch Times, but nothing I say is maybe associated with them.
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No, the gavel was a gag someone gave to me, but it was like a mosquito hawk just flew
00:02:52.420
Oh, yeah, because I feel like there are better ways to...
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I must intervene in this conflict between the bugs.
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Yeah, I'm Will Thiebaud, Army veteran, right on defense policy, in particular for the Claremont
00:03:15.340
Do you think we should go into that country and remove their government or blow up their
00:03:21.700
Well, I think what we should do depends on what we see unfold in the next few weeks.
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I think it completely depends on the success of Israel's operation.
00:03:33.640
And I think it depends on what the Iranian people choose to do once the bombs start falling
00:03:42.040
Um, so, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't pretend to be so arrogant to have the scenario
00:03:50.720
that we should absolutely commit to, regardless of how the facts on the ground change and how
00:03:59.560
But are you in, are you in favor of regime change?
00:04:04.480
Removing the Ayatollah and the structure of government from Iran?
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But you do want, like, but I don't want to say you do, but would you just want to see
00:04:16.160
that structure of governance in Iran altered and, you know, like they remove the Ayatollah
00:04:22.780
I mean, look, if it comes from the ground up, then why not?
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This is my broader concern with the discussion.
00:04:33.920
I think there's a real risk that the United States and Israel have different desired end
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I don't get the same kind of clarity from Israel, perhaps justifiably so, on what their end state
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is from this operation, whether it be to eliminate the Iranian ballistic missile program,
00:04:59.000
eliminate the nuclear threat permanently, or perhaps more broadly, regime change.
00:05:04.200
I think if the United States intervenes militarily with Israel and they have different end states,
00:05:10.780
that is a recipe for escalation, regardless of the first step the United States takes to intervene.
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I see a lot of people, they don't like the title that the U.S. says nuking Iran is the only option.
00:05:28.580
White House denies Trump ruled out using a tactical nuke on Iran.
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Fox's Heinrich reports, okay, well, you know, denying they ruled it out doesn't mean he wants
00:05:42.380
Trump caution on Iran strike linked to doubts over a bunker buster bomb, officials say.
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There's been numerous reports that the bunker busters don't even have the capability to
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And the argument is Iran intentionally built a nuclear facility where they knew even U.S.
00:05:58.260
bunker busters would have a difficult time penetrating.
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And then we have the ongoing live feed from the Daily Mail.
00:06:03.860
Donald Trump is believed to have backed down from military action against Iran, paving the
00:06:07.220
way for diplomatic talks, after realizing that a nuclear strike may have been the only way
00:06:11.360
to completely destroy the buried Fordow enrichment plant.
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The president is said to have told defense officials it would only make sense for the U.S.
00:06:17.960
to join Israel if its bunker buster bombs are guaranteed to be able to destroy the key
00:06:22.860
enrichment site, according to people familiar with the discussions.
00:06:26.140
Officials were said to have been told the U.S. would have to soften the ground with conventional
00:06:29.820
bombs before dropping a tactical nuclear weapon from a B-2 bomber to completely destroy the
00:06:35.580
site, believed to be some 90 meters underground.
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But Trump is said to have ruled out nuking Iran, insiders told The Guardian.
00:06:43.300
The possibility was said not to have been raised by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Chairman of
00:06:47.340
the Joint Sheets of Staff, General Dan Cain, during recent meetings in the Situation Room.
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Fox News then reported the White House has refuted the entire Guardian report, indicating
00:06:55.580
that the use of a nuclear weapon had not yet been ruled out. The future of the region hangs in the
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balance as diplomats scramble to find another solution. There's been an ongoing conversation
00:07:03.900
about whether or not the bunker busters will even work. Jack Posobiec went into great detail
00:07:08.400
on the battle, I believe it's called the BDA, the Battle Damage Assessment, and that the bunker
00:07:13.420
busters are lower yield bombs but designed to penetrate. So they'll break through the concrete
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before detonating, in which case, I believe it's a 90 meter, it's about 300 feet, you would need
00:07:24.800
multiple concurrent strikes of bunker busters to hit it. Well, and they'd have to hit in the same
00:07:30.380
exact spot. In the crater, right? A bunker buster only penetrates to 200 feet before it can explode.
00:07:37.260
So at least two. Right, you need at least two. And they're precise, but it poses, I think,
00:07:43.440
part of the conundrum that many who are hoping President Trump reconsiders military action,
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because if we take a strike at the Fordo nuclear facility, for example, and it doesn't work,
00:07:55.400
we have still initiated combat action, we've initiated physical participation, offensive war
00:08:00.960
against Iran that makes the 40,000 Americans in the region and all our military assets a target,
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a frankly legitimate target for Iranian retaliation. And we've done all that without
00:08:12.340
disabling their primary nuclear facility. There's not, there's not 40,000 people right now. I mean,
00:08:18.920
Trump has already, has already started removing unnecessary troops. He took out all the planes
00:08:25.900
at Al-Udeid. He, I don't think they're all gone. I mean, there are, he had the ships leave the
00:08:30.920
harbor. There are over a thousand American soldiers in Syria, 4,000, I think still in Iraq. So, you know,
00:08:37.940
whether it's 40,000 or 4,000, there's 40,000 on any given day in the region. But what I'm saying
00:08:47.840
is that Trump has already removed, we don't know how many, but he's already started evacuating
00:08:53.880
some of those troops. And to be fair, that does include, uh, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt,
00:09:00.520
Bahrain, Bahrain, Qatar, all, all within range of. Yeah. But you think the, you think Iran's going
00:09:06.960
to start bombing Qatar? No, but I, but this is my point. We don't know what happens in the event
00:09:13.060
of an escalation. I, I, I deployed to Iraq twice and what our kind of main station was at a base in
00:09:20.100
Northern Iraq where on a clear day I could see the mountains of Northwest Iran. And so the, and there,
00:09:25.760
there, again, there are thousands of American soldiers within that range. That's well within
00:09:30.860
ballistic missile range, probably wouldn't even take a ballistic missile. Um, and so my point is,
00:09:35.460
okay, it's perhaps it's not 40,000 Americans directly at risk of retaliation, but how, how many
00:09:40.320
is too many? Sure. And that's, uh, something to consider. Sure. I, I would, I would push back on this
00:09:46.360
idea that any, that Iran, just because they are a very large and mountainous country and, you know,
00:09:55.100
they have a very sophisticated population, highly educated, civilized, that they are anything other
00:10:01.040
than a paper tiger, which we have seen again and again. But then why would the United States need
00:10:06.620
to get involved? They can't even, they can't even look as long as Israel has the skies right now,
00:10:12.780
like, and they are, they can't even get a plane off the ground except like the three that they've,
00:10:18.360
they've managed to, to, to get off the ground, to flee the area. You think that America cannot defend
00:10:23.920
itself against, uh, uh, an air attack from Iran? I mean, this, to me, that's just so ridiculous.
00:10:31.500
Like the air superior superiority of America is just, it's astronomically more than what Iran is.
00:10:39.520
Do you understand the backwards logic here? You're saying that Iran is a paper tiger. So America need
00:10:45.600
not fear retaliation. But at the same time, they are such a formidable military threat that Israel
00:10:53.600
needs our offensive military assistance in order to defeat the threat that Iran poses in the region.
00:11:00.360
There's multiple things there. Not, not all of those things I said, but, um, I'm just saying
00:11:06.580
that how threatening Iran actually is has to be part of the conversation. It can't just be like,
00:11:12.720
will they retaliate or not? Of course they're going to retaliate. But what has to be involved in the
00:11:16.640
conversation is their capabilities. And the best way to measure that is to look at past, um, actions
00:11:23.300
that they have taken, like the October, you know, 2024 ballistic missile attack, even seeing how
00:11:28.100
they've just responded in the last like seven days to Israel. I mean, yes, of course they, they've
00:11:33.220
gotten, they've caused a lot of damage throughout Israel. Yes, there have been 400, 450 missiles that
00:11:38.460
have gone through and like, you know, a thousand drones that they shot and none of which reached
00:11:42.760
Israeli airspace, but they, none of the drones did, you're saying? None of the drones did. Yeah.
00:11:47.720
But, but these ballistic missiles, the amount that they have been sending have been drastically
00:11:52.960
decreasing with each day. Why do you think that is? We don't know for sure, but you're asking why
00:11:59.820
is Iran decreasing the amount of missiles that it's firing? Yeah. It's because they either don't have
00:12:03.680
enough missiles. So they're trying to conserve them. Israel estimates they have like a thousand or
00:12:07.340
something like that, or it's because they can't get them off the ground because they're,
00:12:11.120
they don't have enough launchers. That's one of the arguments that's been made is that Iran's
00:12:17.940
intentionally using lower yield rockets so that they can burn out the Israeli interceptors before
00:12:24.000
launching an actual salvo of destructive ballistic missiles mid range. The Wall Street Journal reported
00:12:30.680
today that Israel is, has depleted almost 60% of their air defense assets. It's easier to shoot a
00:12:36.720
missile than it is to shoot down a missile. And so any decision based on our expectations of Iranian,
00:12:44.600
the Iranian missile supply, I think is, is hubristic. Not, not, not just that, sorry to interrupt,
00:12:50.960
but China just flew three cargo ship, cargo planes into Iran. Yeah. But we have, that could be
00:12:56.160
humanitarian for all we know. We have no idea what's in there. And until anybody has any evidence
00:13:00.940
in terms of what those planes contained, then I'm not going to, I'm not going to think that China
00:13:05.740
is going to come to Iran's rescue. I mean, China has been laying low. They've already like
00:13:10.880
implied that they want nothing to do with it. That's, that's not material to the point that's
00:13:14.300
being made in that we are wondering why Iran hasn't, hasn't launched a larger barrage of higher
00:13:20.180
yield mid range missiles. And the things to consider tactically would be China's shipping something
00:13:25.740
and we don't know what that is. That's a concern. If, if Iran is launching these mid range, lower
00:13:31.700
yield missiles, this, the strategy is fairly obvious. I'm a layman, you know, and just watching
00:13:36.940
Fox news. And we had an interview with a guy on the show the other day. They're saying, well,
00:13:40.760
obviously no one's going to launch their stronger warheads knowing Israel's loaded with interceptors,
00:13:46.040
but interceptors are very expensive. So likely what Iran's going to do is they're going to choose
00:13:50.080
a medium yield so they can save the more powerful rockets, burn down some of the interceptors,
00:13:55.320
hope they penetrate that air defense with some strikes that actually will freak people out.
00:14:01.420
They don't want to go, this is what we were told by a secure, an expert in the region.
00:14:05.260
They don't want to use low yield because when they do break through, there won't be enough damage
00:14:09.620
and people will just be like, oh, this is, this is weak. And then, you know, Israel might restrain
00:14:14.860
themselves on how many interceptors they begin using. But if a couple breakthrough and they're strong
00:14:18.500
enough and the, and the impacts are, and they've been pretty devastating, Israel's going to ramp up
00:14:22.740
its interceptors concerned about the strength of these rockets. Then once Israel depletes the
00:14:27.140
majority of its rockets, Iran will launch a full salvo of high yield, mid range ballistic missiles
00:14:31.580
to actually start causing massive damage in urban areas. Well, to my mind, the burden of proof should
00:14:39.220
be on those who want U.S. military intervention in some form or fashion. I think there's a reasonable
00:14:46.180
chain of events that would lead to even a limited strike of a bunker buster, let's say, or two
00:14:52.880
bunker busters, precipitating a broader engagement because Iran would, I think, necessarily retaliate
00:14:59.560
and the United States would necessarily retaliate in the event that Americans are killed or American
00:15:05.420
assets are threatened. And then you have a path towards regime change, whether or not the United
00:15:11.500
States wanted to march down that path in the first place. There is, you know, and to my mind, that's why
00:15:18.400
I don't find the helpful distinction between, you know, this chain of, oh, well, we should support Israel
00:15:24.100
because it's their fight. Oh, well, let's help them with limited strikes. And now it is...
00:15:28.900
It's not their fight. Wait, what? No. Are you kidding?
00:15:34.240
Well, of course. But are you saying it's not America's fight?
00:15:39.600
I mean, factually, it's not our fight right now.
00:15:46.440
Well, because as the IRGC has stated many times, death to America has not merely been a slogan or a
00:15:56.900
chant, but a governing doctrine that since 1979, we have seen them carry out from the first moment
00:16:04.500
that they took our hostage, that they took our diplomats and our Marines hostages for 444 days
00:16:10.640
and the IRGC bragged about it. Then going to the 80s with the, you know, the 241 servicemen that they killed
00:16:19.200
in the Beirut barracks bombing the year after that when they mutilated and tortured CIA station chief
00:16:27.800
William Buckley, not the National Security guy, and then William Higgins.
00:16:34.540
Okay, but that's just scratching the surface. Then let's go. That's just what they've done to us in the region,
00:16:41.580
in the Middle East. Then let's go to the Western Hemisphere and look at what they've been doing in Latin America.
00:16:48.240
Look at them sending UAVs to Venezuela. Look at them, the reports that they've been trying to dig underground tunnels
00:16:54.740
from Mexico into the United States like they did in Syria and Lebanon and Gaza. Look at the fact that
00:17:02.680
they have dozens, if not hundreds, of sleeper cells here in America, which if you read like Todd Benzman's work
00:17:08.480
or listen to him, he has documented this extensively. There's nobody who's done better fieldwork on this
00:17:13.160
than Todd Benzman. And the fact that they essentially have been wreaking havoc on the region of Latin America
00:17:21.220
strictly so that they can position themselves in a region that they know is, they have turned hostile
00:17:28.560
to the United States. I mean, there's a reason why they're working with the Mexican drug cartels
00:17:34.460
If that threat is as existential and absolute as you present, then I think it begs returning to the original
00:17:43.280
question of if regime change should be the goal of America. That's why I find it almost a bit
00:17:50.060
disingenuous to say there is such an option as a limited strike, because you just went through
00:17:56.140
decades of evidence that paints Iran, even though you said they're a paper tiger, as a nation that
00:18:02.820
could supposedly threaten the continental United States. So let me clarify.
00:18:07.400
So to me, it's like, which is Iran this paper tiger that we must confront in order to preserve
00:18:13.540
the interests of the American people? Or are they a paper tiger that we can handle with a few bunker
00:18:22.440
Sure. Okay, well, two things. Instead of presuming what my views are, feel free to ask. But second of
00:18:29.360
all, what I mean by Iran is a paper tiger is precisely what makes them such a threat in these realms that I
00:18:37.640
said. They're not going to be necessarily as big, I don't believe, but I could be wrong, a military
00:18:44.400
threat because of, like I said, their past actions and the fact that I don't believe that they have the
00:18:50.640
military capacity to essentially go up against the United States. But that is precisely why they use
00:18:58.660
proxies. That is precisely why they are trying to essentially co-opt other governments and regimes
00:19:07.620
and brainwash them and support them so that they can do Iran's dirty work because Iran does not have the
00:19:16.720
I honestly don't know which governments they're co-opting. I'm sure they're subversive.
00:19:23.980
Yeah, so let's confront the co-option of the Bolivian government.
00:19:33.740
Well, there's no limiting principle to this theory, right? Because North Korea,
00:19:37.620
has been talking about wiping off America from the face of the earth for many decades. And they
00:19:44.660
also have nuclear weapons now, a few dozen perhaps.
00:19:47.720
There's a big difference. And nobody wants to say it.
00:19:52.440
There's a big difference between China and North Korea and Iran. Do you know what it is? It's one
00:20:04.180
Communism, as evil as it is, they're atheists, man. They have some sort of sobering idea that makes
00:20:12.720
them understand the risks that their country is going to get nuked to hell. Why do you think the
00:20:17.480
Soviet, why do you think that, you know, mutually assured destruction worked in the Cold War? It was
00:20:22.860
because the Soviet Union understood the actual implications of a nuclear world. Iran are,
00:20:32.180
these people are, this is the thing that, like, no, this is actually really the thing that the
00:20:39.100
non-interventionists don't want, non-interventionists don't want to, like, really dig into. And I would
00:20:50.680
The fact that this regime is a Shiite supremacist, like, you know, they are fanatical.
00:21:01.880
You're saying that Iran is not a rational actor. That's the phrase I believe that defines, we define
00:21:07.340
countries as rational actors or, this was, this was, Mike Duran was talking to us.
00:21:10.740
When we do threat assessment, we say, is this nation a rational actor? Meaning,
00:21:16.280
would they fear being wiped off the map? And the argument is that Iran could go either way.
00:21:20.260
A hundred percent. That is what I'm saying. Because Iran actually really is trying to,
00:21:25.100
like, resurrect the, like, 600, you know, AD, you know, battle of Karbala or whatever it's called,
00:21:31.940
right, to essentially usher in the 12th Shia imam or whatever. Like, this, this is part of their
00:21:39.020
entire political revolutionary doctrine. You cannot separate the religious fundamentalism
00:21:47.280
from any of their political or military decisions. You just can't.
00:21:52.020
So then what is it worth for America to, to end this threat? If, if, if this threat that you just
00:21:59.940
laid out exists, what is the cost that Americans should be willing to pay to eliminate the threat?
00:22:07.160
Uh, the cost in terms of money or the cost in terms of, all of it, like blood and treasure,
00:22:14.520
blood, blood treasure. Yeah. Bandwidth. I mean, what should we do? If, if this threat is so all
00:22:21.160
consuming, what should we do depends on what happens in the next four days. Now I can tell
00:22:26.420
you possible things that could happen. And then I could tell you what I think we should do if each
00:22:30.760
of those things happen. So I don't have like, like, do I think, like you said at the beginning
00:22:35.780
of this conversation, does anybody want, um, America to nuke Iran? Of course I don't want
00:22:40.860
America to nuke Iran, but look, if people want to call me like a war hawk or a warmonger or a neocon,
00:22:47.820
go right ahead. But I do not have any problem saying that depending on how the situation escalates,
00:22:56.240
that I would not take that off of the table. Nuking Iran. Yeah. I mean, to be, to be fair,
00:23:02.940
I mean, the option of nuking anybody is always on the table. And that's why I think Trump denied it.
00:23:07.140
I think the possibility, the probability of Trump nuking Iran is 0%. But you'd be insane to be like,
00:23:12.640
we will never nuke anybody no matter what. That's dumb. Like if Iran actually said, you know what,
00:23:17.680
we've already enriched uranium, we've got dirty bombs, we're dispatching them. And we're nuclear war is
00:23:21.820
now the U S is going to retaliate and say, okay, then we're taking out Fordo right now by whatever
00:23:26.260
means necessary. And I think even Tucker was saying that if they are actively trying to kill Trump,
00:23:31.220
then he would be in favor of bombing the hell out of their country. I know if yeah,
00:23:34.900
Farhad Shaqari doesn't exist. Yeah. I did find it funny that Iran has publicly stated they want to
00:23:41.380
kill Trump. Well, not only that, there has been, there have been, there have been at least three
00:23:46.580
indictments. The guy, the guy who ordered the first of all, that was based off of a phone
00:23:54.000
interview with a guy who is in Iran, who's in Iran, who used to be in our prisons, who was,
00:23:59.460
who was in American prisons. Right. But he's in Iran. He's not now he's in Iran. And we don't,
00:24:03.940
he told us that the IRGC told him to go kill Trump. Well, not just Trump, other people as well.
00:24:09.380
Right. But there's not, and I guess that's a bad thing. And he was the second, he was the second,
00:24:15.060
he was the second person that they linked to an assassination attempt on Trump. And I mean,
00:24:20.100
it's so ridiculous that, that this is considered like a hypothetical to me. I mean, like, this is so,
00:24:25.880
because if you look at what the IRGC has done in the rest of the world, look at what they've done in
00:24:31.700
the UK. Look at, I mean, they, their assassination attempts and espionage, this is like part and parcel.
00:24:39.840
Oh my God. Iran is like, I mean, the, the, the way that Iran has infiltrated the UK and has made
00:24:47.440
that has, has, I mean, you can even look at like David Lammy's like recent comments on them. They
00:24:51.640
are a like level four, like emergency threat in terms of, in terms of, of, of how they are trying
00:24:58.920
to destroy that country from within. Well, but okay. If you, if you remove the IRGC and all of their
00:25:04.440
influence from the UK, the UK would still have a lot of problems from the world migration.
00:25:09.400
A hundred percent. I think, but we need to return to the original question.
00:25:13.440
And this is why I'm, I'm not necessarily convinced by the arguments to, uh, to warrant the United
00:25:19.680
States taking military action to help Israel. Because if, if it's true that all they need is
00:25:24.400
a few bombs dropped on Fordow, uh, but that this threat is so vast and, and multidimensional,
00:25:31.600
then, then that's the least we should do. And, and that's also irrelevant to this threat,
00:25:37.720
this extensive threat. So then, but then I think to be honest, I'd love to respond to that.
00:25:42.200
Well, look, can I show this real quick? This is from Iran international 2023 IRGC commando
00:25:48.000
repeats threat to kill Trump and Pompeo. I remember this, this, this story. Uh, it was really big
00:25:52.980
after the killing of Soleimani, Iran was like, we will get revenge. We will kill Trump. I thought
00:25:56.800
this was, you know, fairly common. They say that, um, Amir Ali Hadja Zadeh, the head of
00:26:02.460
the revolutionary guards, aerospace force spoke of Iran's often repeated threat to avenge
00:26:06.160
the killing of Qasem Soleimani, Tehran's, uh, Tehran's top military intelligence operator
00:26:10.520
in the Middle East saying, we are looking, uh, he went on to give a threat that he wanted
00:26:13.640
to kill Trump. And then you just pull up this guy's Wikipedia page and he died on the 13th.
00:26:23.140
Israeli airstrike in June of 2025. So, uh, I thought this was, you know, this is, this
00:26:30.960
is not a statement of what the U S should or should not do, but the argument that Iran's
00:26:35.780
top officials were like, we will have revenge for the killing of Soleimani. I thought was
00:26:39.360
And I, and I really, I really don't, I really think that if you take Islam out of the equation,
00:26:44.700
then we would be having an entirely different conversation. And I think that's the conversation
00:26:50.140
that I see most people having. And so Karis, are you willing to accept a diplomatic solution
00:26:56.760
that to this conflict that leaves that many in charge of the country?
00:27:01.420
Um, a hundred percent. However, I believe that if that diplomatic solution allows for any sort
00:27:13.960
of future, like in 20 years, if Iran can develop another bomb, which is a very real possibility
00:27:20.820
with a diplomatic solution, then we're just, then we're just going to do it. If they are
00:27:25.240
able to enrich uranium to 60% purity, you know, at the 90% threshold for weapons grade material
00:27:31.940
and have 400 kilograms of, of, of, um, you know, of uranium again, then to me, I think
00:27:40.100
that just shows that we were naive. However, however, if that doesn't happen, then yes,
00:27:46.960
a diplomatic solution is a hundred percent the right way to go. It just depends how much
00:27:52.000
you can, you are prepared to, to verify and to, um, and to essentially keep your guard up.
00:27:59.940
But I want to just address a point you made about, you know, uh, before, which is a really
00:28:05.500
good point that if they're already such a threat, like, um, uh, you were saying, I can't
00:28:13.280
even remember the point you were making, but in response, I wanted to say that you were
00:28:18.000
actually, if Iran is such a threat, then it doesn't make it make sense to make a deal or
00:28:22.720
to do limited airstrikes. It makes sense to do whatever it takes to nuke them or to facilitate
00:28:29.240
And I think that's exactly why I think that should also be on the table. I think that all
00:28:32.260
those solutions should be on the table. Look, if Iran actually surrenders, not as ready to
00:28:39.100
negotiate, not as ready to, you know, um, pause their nuclear program and shut the doors,
00:28:47.040
actual surrender, give up their thousands of centrifuges. Okay. Destroy them, destroy their,
00:28:57.480
Well, they could, it would have to be overseen by the IAEA or,
00:29:00.580
so, so you're, you're, you're, you're saying like foreign security forces in some capacity
00:29:05.980
would need to physically enter Iran and then oversee the actions that they're taking.
00:29:13.000
What if they have secret facilities no one knows about?
00:29:15.220
Well, that's a very real possibility. And that's why, um, uh, they essentially need to
00:29:21.500
have a level of, um, of transparency that to me is very, very, very difficult to get, which
00:29:29.400
makes the diplomatic solution very difficult to achieve. They might have centrifuges in other
00:29:35.220
places, but I mean, we know that they, I mean, the whole reason they, they, that Fordo is, is 300
00:29:42.220
feet underground is precisely because it was covert and it was in violation of the, of the, um, the
00:29:48.760
nuclear non-proliferation treaty, treaty, which the IAEA found.
00:29:52.000
And because they, they didn't, and they don't want to get bombed by, they wanted to specifically
00:29:55.640
They wanted to specifically, exactly. It was, it was literally because they knew about bunker
00:29:58.860
busters and they said, we have to build it in such a, in such a way that the U.S. cannot
00:30:02.700
We destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1991 because they were above ground, which was
00:30:07.640
the impetus for them to build Fordo 300 feet under the earth.
00:30:11.180
Yeah, exactly. There was deep investigation, there was, there was a, there was a deep investigation
00:30:15.500
into their nuclear program. Of course, of course they would want to do it in secret because
00:30:21.800
What's the threat of Iran having a nuclear bomb?
00:30:24.560
Uh, the threat to the world, the threat to America, the threat to Israel. I mean, well,
00:30:29.920
first of all, talk about like, if we're talking about like, uh, you know, blood and treasure,
00:30:38.200
right. And the cost that that would, that a nuclear Iran would like the actual dollar
00:30:44.960
cost of a nuclear Iran on America, it is, I mean, I haven't done the calculations.
00:30:52.140
Maritime routes, transcontinental infrastructure, you try to get, you try to get insurance, you
00:30:58.280
try to get insurance and risk models after there is a nuclear Iran in the region. Are
00:31:03.720
But why? What are you saying they're going to do?
00:31:05.500
Because the entire, well, first of all, there's going to be an arms race. I mean,
00:31:11.260
Okay. The UAE has, has said it. I understand. But so this increases the cost of things like
00:31:17.340
insurance and the region, right? When, when you're doing, when you create, um, you know,
00:31:26.180
Okay. I just gotta, I just gotta, are you saying Iran is going to nuke people?
00:31:30.680
Oh, well, a hundred percent. Well, you just said, are they going to, you said you didn't
00:31:34.220
care about Israel? So I was a, no, I said, I said, I don't care about the world. I only
00:31:39.160
Oh, I thought you said I don't care about Israel.
00:31:42.580
I mean, do I believe they're going to nuke Israel? A hundred percent. But look, I'm trying
00:31:48.280
Do I believe that? I believe a hundred percent they will. Because I believe when somebody
00:31:51.180
says they want to kill you, oh, like look at like North Korea, like this is, this
00:31:54.820
is a huge, this is a perfect example. Okay. Does North Korea, does North Korea have nuclear
00:32:00.600
weapons? Of course they do. Is North Korea an ally of Iran and an enemy of America and
00:32:05.100
an ally of China and, and, and, and Venezuela and all of those rogue stakes? Yes, of course.
00:32:09.840
But again, North Korea, it does not have a, a, a, a, um, an annihilationist, um, dominant,
00:32:19.640
like, uh, uh, uh, um, expansionist goal that Iran has. North Korea wants America destroyed.
00:32:28.080
You don't think North Korea wants to own the entire Korean peninsula? I think they want to
00:32:31.200
own the peninsula. I think that's as far as it goes. Well, so then why haven't, I actually,
00:32:35.640
if you have regional and bit, if you have regional ambitions, you also have to know your, um, know
00:32:41.780
your own capability. Right. And so we can kind of trust North Korea to know that, but because
00:32:47.500
Iran has all of these proxies and because that's coupled with these, these, um, dogmat, dogmatic
00:32:54.320
religiously fundamentalist ambitions, they actually, um, believe that they can carry out a complete
00:33:02.980
restructuring of not just the region, but the entire world. I mean, we're talking about, you
00:33:07.720
know, over a billion, over a billion Muslims. And even if like 10% of that are, are, are, are a group
00:33:15.060
that is sympathetic to any sort of like Islamist way of life. Can you be a little bit more, I understand
00:33:21.780
talking about more than the population of America here. I think Iran is an adversary and I don't think
00:33:28.920
they are some people that we should coddle, but to say that, you know, letting, and I also don't
00:33:37.180
think Iran should have a nuclear weapon. I don't think that's a good thing to hope for or to, you
00:33:41.340
know, to allow, but I think we should be realistic and concrete about the details in the actions that
00:33:49.520
would be required to stop such a future. In my mind, there are two options to stop Iran from
00:33:58.380
having a nuclear weapon. One is diplomacy and a deal. We, there was good reporting before the war
00:34:05.880
started that Iran was willing to accept American investigators on the ground, which was something
00:34:11.460
that president Obama didn't secure. So a deal that allows some sort of verification of their nuclear
00:34:17.720
regime, all the caveats about how difficult that might be apply, or it is an all out ground
00:34:24.680
invasion that necessitates the, the change from the regime that you expertly point out is, so is
00:34:33.520
threatening America across the world. Right. So, so you're saying war or appeasement, there's nothing
00:34:37.960
in between. I said diplomacy, a diplomatic solution. But you know, but you know, I mean, don't be naive.
00:34:44.420
I know you're not naive. You know, that all, all Iran knows how to do is to cheat and to steal.
00:34:51.280
It was there any intelligence assessment around the world that said that they had a nuclear weapon
00:34:57.380
before Israel started their airstrikes? You mean like in 2003, when the IAEA came out with their huge
00:35:05.120
report and discovered that like, since like 1980, or since like the 1980s, at some point, Iran had a
00:35:13.680
completely covert, like secret nuclear weapons program and was in complete violation of the
00:35:19.520
treaty that they had signed on to? Of course. And so I think the, a way to end that is a diplomatic
00:35:26.040
solution that provides genuine transparency, right? Maybe we literally watched them cement, close the
00:35:32.680
doors to Fordeaux. I don't think that's possible. But they said, Iran said- Then we got to go to war.
00:35:37.700
But the Ayatollah, okay. There you just said it. Because the Ayatollahs said, they said over again,
00:35:44.420
over and over again, if you read the news, they said, we are not going to submit to Trump's terms
00:35:51.340
for this deal. The, the, the term, Trump has, Trump has his head on his shoulders. He understands
00:35:59.920
exactly what Iran would need to do in order for them not to be a nuclear threat to America. But
00:36:08.980
those, those things that need to happen, Iran will not agree to. They said it over and over again. So
00:36:17.560
what's wrong with Trump saying to Iran, okay, you have 60 deals, you have 60 days to try to make a deal.
00:36:25.180
And if you do not come up with a diplomatic solution that essentially satisfies our requirements,
00:36:34.560
then all bets are off. I'm, I'm pretty sure that if we, if we invade, we'll be greeted as liberators.
00:36:42.600
This is, I mean, this is, this is, I think underlies a point about the debate. We're told that there is
00:36:48.320
this limited option where we can take some precise action, um, against a regime that is also a paper
00:36:57.380
tiger and an existential threat to humanity at the same time. Uh, and then somehow avoid further
00:37:06.520
entanglement, further military action. And that is, again, I think it's, it's not, I don't, when I say
00:37:14.460
it's not being honest, I'm not, I'm not saying deliberately a deliberate lie, but I think it,
00:37:18.920
it leaves unsaid and undiscussed the real eventualities of what happens when we think that we
00:37:25.000
can take quick, decisive military action in the Middle East to achieve policy outcomes that are
00:37:31.720
actually a lot, uh, more slippery than we care to admit.
00:37:36.800
I think what's happening is, is actually pretty obvious. The United States for a long time now would
00:37:40.760
do whatever it takes to remove the Iranian government and they want regime change. The
00:37:45.460
problem, you got about 90 million people there and many of them have deeply fundamentalistic
00:37:50.760
Islamist worldview that is actually kept in check by the current regime. Meaning if you remove the
00:37:56.760
existing government right now, you have 10 million people maybe who are willing to do, I'll put it this
00:38:03.560
way. Probably one of the biggest civil wars we've seen in hundreds of years, if not ever, because
00:38:07.600
population expansion. And then you're going to have these people spreading out into various other
00:38:12.540
regions and you may end up with the biggest ISIS problem we've ever seen. So this is the US
00:38:18.580
government assessment, basically, that they want the Ayatollah to, to heal. They want to bring him to
00:38:22.800
heal. So he keeps all those extremist forces in check, but also isn't developing a nuke.
00:38:27.600
It's also the assessment of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Sunni Muslim world.
00:38:33.060
And I understand, but I, I, I think the analogy that like, well, okay, well, three things. First
00:38:39.160
of all, I just have to say, well, I explained why I called them a paper tiger and why they're also a
00:38:46.320
threat. And doesn't that make sense? Doesn't it make sense to say that their military capabilities
00:38:51.880
on their own cannot overpower America's or Israel, but they work around the world through their
00:38:58.080
proxies? If they are a threat to us asymmetrically in Bolivia, then we should confront them
00:39:02.920
asymmetrically in Bolivia. It doesn't make any sense to confront them with conventional military
00:39:07.180
action in Iran. Okay. I see what you're saying. We should defeat the threat. Okay. I see what
00:39:11.560
you're saying. But they are, but they are a threat on multiple levels here. So without a nuclear weapon,
00:39:18.180
they are our number one, immediate national security threat. I mean, long-term threat, China,
00:39:25.180
a hundred percent, a hundred percent. But in terms of the immediate national security threat,
00:39:30.780
I believe Iran is number one. Okay. It's fine. Even if you don't think it's number one.
00:39:33.860
Before Iran. What? The Qatars are probably, the cartels are way above Iran. Well, Iran's working
00:39:41.540
with the cartels. So the cartels are a bigger threat to our national security immediately. No,
00:39:45.500
no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tim, I was talking about sovereign nations here. I was talking about
00:39:48.900
sovereign nations. Of course the cartels are a threat. Yeah, but we allocate national security.
00:39:53.200
Of course they're a more immediate threat to us. Of course. They're a threat to our interests in the
00:39:56.040
Middle East. Okay. But I'm talking about in terms of sovereign nations, to me, Iran is the most
00:40:01.960
immediate assets in the Middle East. No, I just explained, I just explained, I just explained how,
00:40:08.920
what they're doing in the Western hemisphere and what they're doing even in our own soil. And we're
00:40:13.080
looking at this screen right now that says that they are trying to kill, you know, Trump. Well,
00:40:18.920
this was a threat to kill him. And I do think they're trying. I think it's silly. Like, of course
00:40:23.880
they want to kill Trump. Okay. So, so it's not just in the Middle East. It's not just in the
00:40:29.320
Middle East. Does Iran own any- Not just our assets in the Middle East. The principal threat
00:40:32.600
we face Iran is in the Middle East. Like, obviously we can say that, you know, the biggest threat
00:40:36.960
China poses is our, is, is, is the South China Sea and the, and the trade agreements and the
00:40:40.760
alliances we have with the Commonwealth nations and Taiwan, et cetera, et cetera. But they engage
00:40:43.800
in cyber attacks on us as well. Obviously Iranian- They also own millions of acres of American
00:40:49.120
land. Oh, believe me. Look, I work for the Epoch Times. I, I understand the Chinese
00:40:54.520
communist threat to America. And that's why I said long-term threat, no doubt China.
00:40:59.880
The real threat that I don't, you know, the reason why I asked about whether they're going
00:41:03.480
to nuke us is because for some reason, and I don't know why, like, I just, nobody says it.
00:41:08.120
You know, I keep hearing about, you know, even Trump has been saying for 40 years,
00:41:11.560
they cannot have a nuclear weapon. And I'm like, are you saying they will nuke us? And everybody
00:41:16.840
always dances around that question because I'm like, is the answer yes or no? I think the bigger,
00:41:20.520
the bigger question is, the bigger risk is that Iran's going to give a bunch of crackpot
00:41:25.240
Islamist lunatic rebel groups, low, like low yield nuclear bombs, tactical, like, uh, like,
00:41:32.280
like dirty bombs and suitcase nukes. A hundred percent. And then you're going to see like cities
00:41:36.440
irradiated. A hundred percent, Tim. You're, you are going to see if Iran gets a, gets a bomb,
00:41:41.300
you are essentially going to see the first ever- It's not a bomb. Nuclear equipped dirt, whatever,
00:41:46.360
equipped insurgency. Like you will see insurgency, like ideologically, you know,
00:41:52.200
The real concern I have is like the Houthi rebels, uh, launching nuclear artillery, low yield stuff,
00:41:57.480
but just vaporizing a tanker in the Red Sea and then threatening the globe, like the world with,
00:42:03.720
we have, we have 10 more of these and we're not telling you where they are. And then what do we do?
00:42:08.840
Do we like, does Tom Cruise have to come in and hunt them down? I mean, and I'm not,
00:42:12.840
and I'm not advocating for war. I'm saying this is, this is the real concern that needs to be brought
00:42:16.840
up. And if you're saying the number one threat is in the Middle East, then yes, I agree with you.
00:42:21.880
It's more, but I'm just saying that we have to consider what they're also doing
00:42:26.920
in the rest of the world, in Europe and in the Western hemisphere. And I would also point out
00:42:33.160
that this idea that like, okay, cause Will, you're saying essentially the choices are a diplomatic
00:42:38.840
solution or like an all out ground invasion, but why does that? Well, whatever military action it
00:42:43.960
takes to facilitate, but why regime change. Okay. So, well, or, which I think is a ground
00:42:50.040
invasion, the nuclear weapon. Yeah. And I guess I don't buy that you perhaps would accept a future
00:42:59.240
where Iran continues all of these adversarial actions around the world, just without a nuclear
00:43:05.960
program at home. Right. Would I accept that? Would you, yeah. Would you accept that? Would
00:43:10.360
you accept them working with the cartels and Bolivia and infiltrating the UK just so, right? Like,
00:43:16.840
there would still be a threat. No, I think we should continue. Exactly. We should continue.
00:43:20.680
To confront them, like you said, asymmetrically. Until when?
00:43:25.240
Well, until essentially America and Israel and their new Gulf allies have essentially taken out
00:43:32.200
all of these proxy groups and the maximum campaign of sanctions have essentially rid, um, Iran of,
00:43:39.480
of their, you know, economic, um, uh, uh, of their, their economic capabilities to fund these groups.
00:43:47.160
And, and they essentially have to, they're forced to focus primarily on their own people.
00:43:53.640
Yeah, I, I get that. I think that starting down that path, starting down this path of U.S. military
00:44:03.560
action necessitates a world where we are involved in a regime change in Iran.
00:44:09.640
But why? Because, because look at the, look at the past, like, look at what not everything has to be,
00:44:15.800
not, not everything is a rock. Okay. Look at, look at what Trump,
00:44:20.760
not, can I explain why? Because, so why it would happen? Trump, but what about, what about Trump
00:44:25.480
taking out, um, what about Trump spending two years taking out ISIS? Boom, done. What about,
00:44:30.600
what about Trump spending three years taking out Al-Shabaab in Somalia? Boom, done. You know what?
00:44:35.160
What about Trump in North Korea? Yeah, if I could. What about, you know what I mean? Like,
00:44:38.360
these are one and done things. Why does everything have to, to, to, why, why does your brain go to a hundred percent?
00:44:45.080
So I, there's examples of Trump being, of, of actually being successful at caring, at taking
00:44:51.880
military action that does not result in like forever wars or boots on the ground.
00:44:57.000
The fight against ISIS did involve boots on the ground. That's true. ISIS did.
00:45:00.360
Uh, Americans, myself included, uh, Kurds, tons of, tons of thousands of Kurds where Soleimani was
00:45:08.040
killed in Baghdad, Iraq. What I'm saying is that we, we carried out a strike. We took military action
00:45:15.000
and that was a one and done thing. I'm just saying not every military action means that it's going to
00:45:19.960
end in boots on the ground or a forever war or, you know, hundreds of American casualties.
00:45:26.280
I just want to, I just want to, want to, want to draw the parameters here. Um, is, is your position,
00:45:31.320
no military intervention, the U.S. should stay out of it?
00:45:34.360
I think my position is, is the status quo with a credible threat of U S military action in order
00:45:41.480
to facilitate a better deal that provides a more permanent end to the Iranian nuclear program
00:45:49.640
becoming a weapons program. But you are then saying, you are, you are then saying that there
00:45:53.240
is a possibility of U S military invention, uh, intervention. Uh, so to what scale, depending
00:46:00.040
on the threat, would you tolerate U S military invention? Like what I mean by that is,
00:46:04.440
if Iran, if the Ayatollah goes on TV, literally holding a red button with a giant
00:46:08.840
nuke behind him saying, we're going to launch this, would you then propose a, a, a military
00:46:12.840
and like a full regime change? If, if we have a credible threat that Iran is about to launch
00:46:19.640
a nuclear weapon at America or at Israel, then of course it necessitates
00:46:25.000
a proportion, a just preemptive action. Like actual, I'm saying is, is there a scenario and
00:46:31.480
it's silly to say, you know, I've got a button, but is there a scenario in your mind where we
00:46:35.080
have to send U S troops into Iran? Well, so this is my point. If Iran, uh, killed U S soldiers,
00:46:43.480
certainly at scale as, as they already have, but in an exchange of conventional military firepower,
00:46:48.760
then the United States would be justified in invading Iran. I think, but the, the way to
00:46:53.720
avoid that is to stay out of offensive military action against the regime right now. There's,
00:47:00.680
there, there real quick, there's one scenario where I think literally 95% of people in this country
00:47:05.720
agree that we would send boots on the ground into Iran. And that is the assassination of Donald Trump
00:47:11.400
by the Iranians. I've even talked to anti-interventionist libertarians who agreed
00:47:15.960
if a foreign nation kills your president, you are, you there, there is, there is no question.
00:47:20.280
It's an obligation to respond. Your nation doesn't exist if your leaders are killed by your enemies.
00:47:25.960
So I think most people, when we have this conversation of intervention or not,
00:47:30.520
we're really just talking about the threshold of threat. At what point do we deem the threat to
00:47:35.480
have exceeded the red line to which we have to go in. And I think what we're really seeing is
00:47:40.440
the anti-intervention voices think that line is very, very far away. And then many people think
00:47:45.640
we're at that line, you know, that if Iran gets fissile material, then the line is like,
00:47:50.760
then it's too late. So the right, the line is now that they're so close to having it.
00:47:53.880
Well, and also like a nation like Israel, like, I want to talk about how close they actually are
00:47:58.520
though. America can afford to take a lot more risks with Iran than like a nation of Israel can.
00:48:04.040
So it also just depends, it also just depends like, you know, what, what, like, you know,
00:48:10.440
where we are in the world and, and how we're looking at it. So I don't describe myself as an
00:48:16.360
I don't describe myself as an anti-interventionist. I think the United States should take military
00:48:22.360
action when it is necessary to preserve the interests of the American people, uh, and,
00:48:28.440
and our nation, our borders, uh, to say that, you know, it's anti-interventionist or not is,
00:48:34.280
I think a little bit of a way to misframe, misframe the debate.
00:48:38.040
I definitely don't think you're an anti-interventionist. I've seen you on Fox.
00:48:41.240
Well, you know, I, I, I am, uh, I am more restrained than most, I hope.
00:48:46.840
Yes. I would, I would, I would classify you as someone who urges for foreign restraint.
00:48:50.680
I, I, I do think that there are extremes on the issue and the anti-interventionist voices
00:48:58.920
have more prominent extreme, uh, uh, personalities.
00:49:03.800
Than the pro intervention. Typically, like even Mark Levin, who is probably one of the most pro
00:49:10.040
intervention is if I were to scale things at like a minus 10 to positive 10 and the positive 10 people
00:49:17.800
are like, go in boots on the ground, take over, remove the Ayatollah. And the anti-interventionists
00:49:22.680
are like, we should never be involved no matter what you're insane. Minus 10. I think that the
00:49:27.080
prominent voices we see that are anti-intervention skew closer to the extreme than the pro intervention
00:49:32.840
forces. Not, I'm not, it's not, it's not a moral judgment. I'm saying the pro intervention
00:49:36.920
individuals know they have a hard sell to make. And so they're trying to come across as more reserved
00:49:41.720
and more reluctant to actually engage in conflict.
00:49:44.200
But do you think that is a, a fact of their messaging or of their actual vision?
00:49:50.120
I think it's PR. Their actual vision is like Bolton when he said, next year we'll be celebrating
00:49:56.280
Publicly, they know that if they come out and they say, we're going to send boots on the
00:49:59.240
ground, tens of thousands of Americans will die and we will raise an American flag over
00:50:03.400
their capital city. If you say that you're going to lose the PR battle instantly.
00:50:06.840
Well, but like I'm, but, but I'm somebody who, I don't think that's all always true. I mean,
00:50:14.600
maybe there are some of these people that are more reserved and secretly are war hawks or warmongers.
00:50:20.280
But I think a lot of these people who support President Trump just really believe in a, in
00:50:24.680
a peace through strength agenda and really do, uh, really do think that, that Iran is a credible
00:50:34.680
Trump's doing it all right. I'm, I'm very impressed.
00:50:37.880
He met with Bannon and called Tucker on the phone.
00:50:39.720
Well, I think Tucker called him and Tucker apologized, but a private meeting with Steve
00:50:43.880
Bannon shows that Trump is actually listening to the people. He's listening to his advisors.
00:50:50.360
He, he, he, he does pay attention. And I, I'm hoping that.
00:50:53.640
I don't know if meeting with Steve Bannon means that he's listening. I mean,
00:51:02.280
But you know, you've seen what all the polls say about this, right? About what the America,
00:51:09.400
So depending on the question, the, there's sentiment against striking Iran, but sentiment
00:51:15.240
in favor of stopping them from getting a nuke, which is like,
00:51:21.000
I think it's a mixed bag. I mean, in 83% of Americans wanted us to invade Iraq.
00:51:25.800
And then in, in two years, less than two years, it was a completely toxic political position.
00:51:33.000
Well, look, we get what we deserve, right? We get what we vote for. And what we, I mean,
00:51:36.120
it is the will of the people. So even if we are stupid and we believe, you know, in, in, in,
00:51:41.480
in the government taking certain actions that end up, uh, you know, shooting us in the foot,
00:51:47.160
like, I'm sorry, that's our right. That's, that's our, that's how the world works. That's how it
00:51:51.480
should go. We can't be shielded from death and making mistakes if it's the will of the people.
00:51:56.600
Right. Um, and, and I think that sure we can, we, we don't govern by referendum. So I don't,
00:52:03.320
I mean, it doesn't need to, my point is it doesn't need to dictate foreign policy.
00:52:06.360
We don't have like mob, mob rule, but what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is if an
00:52:10.440
overwhelming amount of people are supporting a certain action, like on the foreign policy,
00:52:16.200
like international stage, then I don't think that without good reason, they're like a,
00:52:25.160
a small group of people then should be like, Oh no, all of you people are wrong.
00:52:29.400
Yeah. But it's clear right now that there is not overwhelming support for us military
00:52:33.000
intervention. I don't know. I mean, look at the punch bowl poll, the CNN poll, the, uh,
00:52:39.320
the JL partners poll, none of these, I mean, well, maybe punch, but CNN and, and JL partners,
00:52:45.480
they don't use you gov. Rasmussen doesn't use you gov and jail partners found that 65% of
00:52:51.080
MAGA Republicans more than the conventional Republicans, which they found were 50% favored
00:52:57.160
were in favor of us strikes. Now, would they be in favor of a ground invasion? Maybe not. Maybe
00:53:02.840
that would be the red line, but they did find that 65% would support president Trump in a strike.
00:53:09.320
Yeah. I think it's a mixed bag. Steve Bannon said, if Trump decides to join the war, MAGA will get on
00:53:15.160
board. That's a, that's a bold statement. I think you lose permanently 20% of MAGA for sure. But I
00:53:22.360
think a lot of Trump supporters will grumble and be like, I can only trust my president or something
00:53:26.600
like that. Well, because Trump's record is incredible. I mean, he's, he, he, he really has
00:53:32.200
an impeccable record of, like I said, taking military action, but not leading us into disastrous
00:53:39.320
consequences. Can I just choose to believe the poll that represents my worldview though,
00:53:42.840
and ignore all the rest? Because, uh, you gov says, no, people don't want military action.
00:53:47.800
And so as long as my political position is aligned with one poll, I'll ignore all the other ones.
00:53:52.280
Yeah. But that's why I was saying you gov is like a, I mean, there's a lot of problematic.
00:53:55.480
I agree. I agree. You gov is, yeah, but that's, but I'm look at the jail partners poll. Look at the
00:54:01.400
punch bowl poll. Look at the CNN poll. Maybe punch bowl uses you gov. I'm not sure, but I know that CNN
00:54:06.600
doesn't. I know that jail partners doesn't. And Rasmussen, look at the Rasmussen poll for me. They don't use you gov.
00:54:13.320
I don't want to say I don't care. My point is that they're all similar. They're all saying the same
00:54:18.580
thing. That's my point. The issue is that the questions are asked. It's not that split. It's
00:54:23.140
not that split as people want to say. The majority of Americans do support, uh, President Trump and
00:54:27.740
MAGA. They don't want, they don't want, um, Iran, the majority of Americans do not want Iran to have
00:54:32.480
a nuclear weapon. They understand Iran is a, uh, a nuclear Iran would be an even bigger national
00:54:38.120
security threat to America than they already are. And some of that, and some of that population,
00:54:43.820
um, depending on the poll would support military action in the form of strikes. I haven't seen any,
00:54:49.600
I haven't seen any polling about a ground invasion. I haven't looked.
00:54:52.640
You know, what's really funny too, is just sort of as an aside, there's a lot of anger at Trump.
00:54:56.860
Even Tucker Carlson said Trump is complicit in this war. Trump hasn't done anything yet.
00:55:00.960
Well, it's, it's, you know, the commentary online right now is it's as if, I mean, well,
00:55:08.800
it depends on what you read because there's contradictory reports where either Trump did
00:55:11.980
know or didn't know was involved. This was the most brilliant deception plan. I mean, it was
00:55:19.520
absolute. Oh my God. I'm sorry. Anybody who thinks that Netanyahu did not coordinate with America
00:55:26.120
does not understand anything about the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump. I'm sorry. Netanyahu
00:55:33.760
is Trump's bitch. I'm just going to say it for all like, you know how, you know how the media painted
00:55:40.140
in a ridiculous image of, of president Trump, right? Through like Russiagate and all of the lies
00:55:47.160
about him that just bared no reality to the person he was, right? He's a fascist. He's a dictator,
00:55:51.840
all this kind of stuff. That's exactly what Western media does with Netanyahu. I don't like
00:55:57.840
Netanyahu at all. So I'm not saying like, this is not like, you know, I'm not cheerleading for
00:56:01.900
Netanyahu, but the way that the, the media portrays him and the way that conservatives have
00:56:07.000
even fallen for some of the media's lies about him is hysterical. Netanyahu is not a hawk. He is a
00:56:14.580
pussy. He is a bitch. And he essentially has, has like, I mean, the anti-Israel people don't know
00:56:21.580
whether to cheer or, or get angry because they want to believe Israel controls America. I know,
00:56:25.840
of course. Well, that's the thing is this is all, this is all binaries. It's war or appeasement. It's
00:56:29.820
the Iraq war or, you know, or, I mean, but the thing is like, what's different? Look, all of these
00:56:35.400
conservatives that are now saying we should make a deal. Like, let me ask you, Will, like,
00:56:38.580
like you, Trump ran on the idea that the JCPOA in 2015 was an absolute disaster. So if, if, if
00:56:50.600
Iran is not agreeing to these new terms, these more, these more hardline terms that Trump is giving
00:56:58.220
them, then how could a deal be possible? There, because there was real evidence and reporting that
00:57:05.360
they had agreed to a more, agreed to some terms that would have made a more stringent deal
00:57:09.960
before Israel started their campaign of airstrikes. I didn't hear that. What I heard is that the
00:57:14.800
Ayatollah had, so can I, let me, let me, maybe I could just go on a little bit. So there is a world
00:57:20.520
where, for example, Iran accepts an inspection regime that includes American inspectors, a key
00:57:27.640
oversight of the JCPOA and something that I think would go a long way towards visibility into a future
00:57:34.040
nuclear program. And, and hey, there's even a world where the Israeli military campaign is a really
00:57:40.420
effective means of getting an even better deal. And that's, that's what I think we need to talk about
00:57:45.700
is how, what does Israel do from here? It's pretty clear that they cannot achieve the outcome of ending
00:57:52.960
the nuclear program militarily by themselves. I think that's true. And so perhaps this is the time,
00:58:00.440
if it's true what there is reported about Israel's air defense stocks, if it's true that they can't
00:58:07.060
destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, then I think a great outcome for Israel is to use this kind of
00:58:14.580
zenith of pressure to back Iran into a corner where they have to accept a good deal. That to me is,
00:58:23.420
I don't know, but I imagine can be an organizing principle of US diplomatic policy here and foreign
00:58:30.880
policy. Because, again, the future is one where Israel either starts to risk their own population
00:58:38.920
and their own defense and civilian infrastructure. Or, again, it's even, it's even further escalation.
00:58:46.060
That's why I think, you know, this weekend is, is so key. These two weeks Trump has given us is so
00:58:50.240
key because it's the chance for Israel's military action to produce the best possible outcome,
00:58:55.500
which is a better deal for Israel and the United States. And that, that, otherwise we get to the
00:59:00.860
point where we run out of steam. Israel runs out of steam in some ways, defensively and offensively,
00:59:05.640
and this starts to get really bad, whether we can control it or not. I don't know what you think
00:59:11.460
about that. But again, we have to be real about what, what defensive interceptors look like.
00:59:15.880
It sounds like to me that like the, the, the, the evidence and the reporting that comes out that
00:59:23.220
kind of fits, um, you know, your kind of preconceived assessment about this and the
00:59:29.220
evidence and reporting that comes out on a day-to-day basis that fits my already previous
00:59:35.520
assessments are perhaps different. It's like, we're looking at different evidence. I'm looking at
00:59:41.080
evidence. I'm looking, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm in like WhatsApp groups and, and telegram groups with,
00:59:45.780
like, you know, with Iranians and IDF, um, people, you know, that are sending real time stuff
00:59:52.120
that are saying different things to me than, you know, than what your groups are telling you
00:59:57.340
about whether, about whether, you know, Iranians are about whether the Ayatollahs are, are prepared
01:00:03.320
to actually give up their nuclear weapons program in a real way for this deal.
01:00:07.440
Yeah. I mean, you know, there was, uh, uh, some social media reporting that there was an Iranian
01:00:14.320
plane that flew to Oman with a delegation on Tuesday. Uh, I think three planes.
01:00:20.720
Well, sure. And so there, there is always going to be bluster from the regime, from the Ayatollah.
01:00:26.080
There's always going to be the, the chance of death to America, but I think you have to look at the
01:00:31.560
actions of the government. Uh, you know, frankly, they, there, there's a world in which they could
01:00:37.660
have already escalated this if they really hated America so much. And if they really wanted to cling
01:00:42.720
to their nuclear regime to the death, uh, I, you know, if I'm, if I'm just putting myself in their
01:00:47.780
shoes and I, I wanted a nuclear program, but they have other, no, but they have certain ambitions that
01:00:54.720
they are always weighing. Right. So like, of course they want to destroy America. Of course they want to
01:01:00.240
take down the West. Right. But they are, but they are trying to do this in multiple ways in different
01:01:06.180
geopolitical theaters of war around the world. So if they believe that, you know, dropping a nuclear,
01:01:11.980
uh, bomb is going to offset some other things that they're trying to do, like everything's like in
01:01:17.760
that sense, like in that sense, they are rational because they're, they're essentially juggling all
01:01:24.660
their different methods of, of, you know, uh, ambitions for global domination. And they're trying
01:01:31.480
to figure out what is the best way to achieve that on any given day. I agree with you, but that's why
01:01:36.720
if the United States gets militarily involved, all bets are off for them because they know that they're
01:01:42.840
in a world where they're not just fighting the IDF, they're fighting the American military. Right.
01:01:50.420
That requires a, you know, a complete escalation of violence. We get to see, we'll probably see the
01:01:57.140
whole nature of their, uh, air defense assets. That that's my concern with the, the news about
01:02:03.640
what this, what these bunker busters would or would not do. It seems to me that it would be
01:02:08.940
reasonable for Iran to preserve some of their most sophisticated air defense assets, especially around
01:02:13.280
their military sites. And so what it would look like, even let's say, we're not going to drop a
01:02:18.120
tactical, tactical nuclear weapon. But even if we're going to drop three or four bunker busters,
01:02:23.320
which is probably what it would take, that's also 10% of our supply. Uh, it would require
01:02:28.280
probably a half dozen other U S aircraft to go in before the B2s with the bunker busters,
01:02:35.060
expose themselves to air defense capability. That's tankers, you know, 40,000 feet.
01:02:42.720
And so that, and that assumes knowledge. It assumes that the Iranians are showing us
01:02:47.960
all their cards right now. And I think there has to be a degree of humility over the fact
01:02:53.320
that we don't yet know the full extent of what's left in the Iranian arsenal.
01:02:57.920
It's like when Goku is fighting someone, he doesn't go super saiyan right away.
01:03:02.860
Yeah. I don't necessarily grasp that analogy, but, but, but, but I, I think we're on the same
01:03:09.160
page. I, that is basically Iran is holding back waiting because I mean, I actually think the U S
01:03:16.960
understands this. Israel's going to go in, uh, Iran's known for their air defense, which, and
01:03:22.520
it's mountainous, which makes it very difficult for the U S to come and just flatten. Iran knows
01:03:26.940
they're not going to penetrate Israeli interceptors with U S support. So the assumption is they're
01:03:31.960
holding back their higher yield warheads until they feel that they're going to start breaking
01:03:35.700
through the interceptors. Additionally, they're going to keep air defense hidden and secure
01:03:41.320
and not use it. So it will not be targeted because they know the U S will try and come
01:03:45.720
with bunker busters. So I think it's fair to assume. And I think probably the U S has already
01:03:50.820
assessed this when they do go in with bombers, new, new Iranian air defense is going to pop
01:03:56.780
up. They did not know was there and rockets will be firing at our, at our, at our, I think
01:04:01.440
it's a possibility, but if we're prepared to, you know, doubt Iran's capability, like
01:04:05.620
I'm also, I'm also doubting these headlines that say that the Pentagon has briefed, uh,
01:04:14.700
Trump that, you know, and said that these bunker busting, these 30,000 bunker busting
01:04:19.220
bombs are not actually going to work and that it would require some sort of boots on the ground
01:04:23.160
commando raid. Like, you know, a lot of news like this has come out in the last few months,
01:04:29.020
a lot of stuff that's been like leaked to anonymous sources. And then Trump will like send out a
01:04:33.020
treatment. He'll just be like fake news, you know? So I'm just like, I'm, I'm skeptical of
01:04:37.840
that analysis too, especially when like, you know, this has been the scenario that has been mapped out
01:04:43.880
for, you know, over a decade, you know, of like possibly using, you know, these, these big bombs to,
01:04:50.700
to get to Fordo. And I don't think it's necessarily true. Look, it's all, it's also true that
01:04:58.500
Israel might be able to do this themselves with their 5,000 pound bombs. Okay. So like we have to,
01:05:07.260
we have to be skeptical about all of this. And this is why I said at the very beginning that what I
01:05:12.600
think America should do completely depends on how this develops on a day to day basis and what Israel
01:05:20.200
is discovering and, and, and how their operation is progressing, how we see the momentum of the
01:05:27.960
people on the ground in Iran shaping up. I think all of these factors are so important before we say
01:05:34.460
what America should or should not do. We need to be able to have multiple scenarios in our heads that
01:05:39.580
play out and, and, and come up with solutions for every single one of those scenarios.
01:05:44.540
I disagree with that only because if we were convinced that this was a, a reasonable, uh,
01:05:50.440
an operation with a reasonable chance of success and a necessary one, I think we had to have done
01:05:55.020
it this week because, I mean, and, and that, that's why I frankly, the 30,000 pounds. Yeah. Yeah.
01:06:01.160
Like just, uh, dropping bombs to destroy Fordo. I mean, who, who knows what other contingencies can be
01:06:06.060
put in place. Um, that's why I'm a little bit more hopeful. I'm, I'm, uh, I think the, you know,
01:06:12.740
once we get past this weekend, I'll be a little bit more hopeful for chances for a diplomatic
01:06:16.920
solution. I, because the decisive military action is about momentum and massing fire power, uh,
01:06:26.200
before the adversary can react to it or plan for it. Um, I think that the, uh, the reason these moves
01:06:34.300
are being made now has less to do with, uh, enriched uranium and more to do with, I think this will be
01:06:41.420
the last period based on current trends in which the U S supports Israel. I think within 10 years,
01:06:47.020
you're going to start seeing more and more calls to defund USA to Israel. And I think within 20
01:06:53.240
years, we probably cut off Israel entirely based on the, the trends in polling and sentiment towards
01:06:57.940
Israel with the, the boomers, uh, largely being the support base for us involvement with Israel.
01:07:06.080
I think as they start dying, getting older and, you know, exiting the, the, um, the, the economy,
01:07:12.800
exiting the economy, be it political or otherwise, you're going to get Gen Z politicians. And if
01:07:19.080
they're on the right, they're going to say, I don't know why we're funding this. And if they're on the
01:07:22.680
left, they're going to say, we hate Israel. Okay. The end result is the funding is cut off. And if this
01:07:28.300
were 10 years from now and Israel started striking Iran, the US would be like, leave us out of it. Bye.
01:07:32.740
Okay. Um, that's a whole different conversation that I am so happy to get into if we, because
01:07:38.960
you just said a lot of things that actually assume, um, uh, certain, I'm not assuming I would say
01:07:46.020
misconceptions about the relationship between I'm basing it off of the existing polls from Pew as
01:07:50.340
of March. No, no, no, no, no. I know. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that your assumption about
01:07:53.960
people not supporting Israel is incorrect. I'm saying your characterization of funding Israel and
01:07:59.580
USAID actually, USAID, sorry. And, uh, funding them through, uh, USAID and getting paid and all
01:08:06.260
that or whatever. And the memorandum, however, all the ways that we've given it, whether it's
01:08:10.340
$2 billion and the $3.8 billion package or USA, USAID help, whatever it is, right. All the ways in
01:08:18.320
which we fund and help Israel, like to me that like, do I believe that the, the younger generations
01:08:26.500
are going to be, um, you know, fundamentally opposed to this? Sure. But that's only if the
01:08:32.640
messaging stays the same. And if that, if, if, if people still continue to believe that we are
01:08:38.800
literally writing like a blank check to Israel and they can do whatever they want, because that is
01:08:43.380
a flat out lie. Nobody understands, nobody understands what this quote unquote aid actually
01:08:51.520
does for America. And people calling it aid makes them believe that like America isn't getting an
01:08:58.940
extraordinary return. Not material to what I'm saying. It's not material to what I'm saying.
01:09:04.160
Let's just call it funding. The current sentiment, according to Pew is minus 53. So 53% of Americans
01:09:09.900
reportedly have an unfavorable view of Israel. I don't really care about whether that number is
01:09:15.020
accurate. I care about the trends that Pew has tracked. I think trends are better,
01:09:18.660
are easier to understand because they're using similar polling methodology and using the similar
01:09:22.940
methodology, they found a different result. That is for, uh, U S adults aged 18 to 49 among Republicans,
01:09:30.940
Republicans are lean, right. It went from 35 to 50% unfavorable. And among Democrats,
01:09:36.300
it's 62 to 71. The younger generation is overwhelmingly shifting in that direction.
01:09:42.220
Israel would not be able to launch an attack on Iran like this even five years from now.
01:09:46.660
I know. But what I'm saying to you, Tim, what I'm saying to you is that the nature,
01:09:51.500
the relationship between Israel and America will change. It's already started to change since October
01:09:58.440
7th. So it won't matter. So I'm not saying that this isn't true. It could be true. But right now,
01:10:03.860
what is happening is what October 7th showed, uh, Israel is that essentially the entire like post
01:10:12.340
Yom Kippur war do decision to gut their, you know, the most important units of their military
01:10:20.480
and focus on, you know, what they call a small and smart army and offload, you know, so much
01:10:26.460
manufacturing to America and depend America was like depend on America for their, you know, military
01:10:33.980
needs was, might've been the, like the biggest mistake that Israel has ever made in the history
01:10:41.060
of its existence. And it is now taking, um, it is now trying to correct that. I wish it was taking,
01:10:48.440
I wish, I mean, this gets into the whole IDF and the political class in Israel and the,
01:10:53.260
and the generals and whatever, and all that, all the whole can of worms. But I hope, and it seems
01:10:58.700
like people are starting to wake up in Israel that like over time, they, a hundred percent,
01:11:05.000
they should decouple with America because it's an unhealthy, toxic, um, you know, uh, like essentially
01:11:13.260
like the fact that, that America, I mean, look at, we saw what happened with Biden. Biden was holding,
01:11:19.520
um, Israel hostage one hand tied behind their back. They wouldn't let Israel do what they needed to do
01:11:23.860
to win the war. And it ended up prolonging this Gaza war and dragging it out for way longer than it
01:11:29.440
need to be dragged just because Biden knew that he had, he was able to, to pull the strings because
01:11:35.680
he was holding hostage, hostage, necessary armaments that Israel needed for this war.
01:11:41.540
Well, I have a question. Do you guys think that, let's say the U.S. had zero involvement with
01:11:46.100
Israel, like we weren't providing any funding in any capacity and we only had like very loose
01:11:50.960
communications. Do you think that activists would protest the same over the Israel Gaza war?
01:11:57.020
Oh, for sure. Like, so it's, I guess it's, it's not because the U.S. is involved.
01:12:02.740
No, no, no. There's always another reason that they invent. Of course. It's the same stuff
01:12:07.020
regurgitated, but, but there's a reason why I brought this up because the follow-up is why,
01:12:12.020
why don't we have the same protests over like the weird Muslims in China?
01:12:16.160
Yeah. But look, Israel is damned if they do damned if they don't. Look, you even saw this
01:12:19.980
with like the anti-interventionists, right? Like when, like right at the beginning, um, when,
01:12:24.520
when, uh, Israel carried out this, this incredible, you know, Michael Corleone,
01:12:30.460
Sherlock Holmes, 007 strike on the, on the 12th and 13th, um, immediately the response from like
01:12:37.000
people like Jack Posobiec and, and, and, and, you know, some Groypers and stuff like that were like,
01:12:40.880
this is the ultimate betrayal of Netanyahu. And these are the, I mean, of president Trump.
01:12:46.060
And these are the same people saying that like, we need to decouple and, you know, Israel should
01:12:50.960
just like do their own thing. And like America should, well, which is it? Do you want Israel
01:12:55.480
to do their own thing? Or do you want Israel to be coordinating with America? This is always,
01:13:00.560
no matter what Israel does, because Israel is the collective Jew, Israel's just the collective Jew.
01:13:05.320
Any classic trope that you apply, classic anti-Semitic trope that you apply to the anti-Semitic Jew
01:13:10.360
has just been transferred in the modern age onto the state of Israel.
01:13:13.900
Do you think it would have been pro, I don't know what's true in many ways, but do you think
01:13:19.000
it would have been problematic or it would be problematic if we found out that Netanyahu
01:13:23.800
launched this military operation knowing that Israel needed America to finish the job? And he did so
01:13:34.960
Oh yeah, that would be problematic. But not if he did it with, with coordination.
01:13:43.440
With no, if he did it with no plan in place to carry, carry this out without America's help.
01:14:02.640
Yeah, honestly, I didn't expect that. But, but, you know, there's plenty of reporting that
01:14:06.840
indicates President Trump and the Americans asked Israel not to strike multiple times.
01:14:13.520
There's a, there's negotiations scheduled for the Sunday, last Sunday, I suppose. Right.
01:14:18.960
And so my point is, like, if we want to perhaps abate this trend, because I think Tim is right,
01:14:27.060
that it's a, it's kind of a pivotal point for the Israel-U.S. relationship that I don't think
01:14:32.260
you can just wish away on either side. And that, that's why diplomacy is, these numbers
01:14:40.500
will accelerate drastically if there is, I think, even a not necessarily that long protracted
01:14:47.000
war in the Middle East, because Americans don't want that. They don't, they don't want
01:14:53.260
military involvement in the Middle East, despite kind of the, the proximate issues of-
01:14:58.140
Right. And unfortunately, they've been brainwashed by the media for decades to believe that, that
01:15:05.120
the relationship with Israel is one of the reasons why we're tied to the Middle East, when
01:15:09.880
in actuality, Israel is America's biggest buffer in the Middle East that allows America to
01:15:16.860
redirect resources to the Indo-Pacific, to China. Without Israel, America would have so many more
01:15:25.240
expenditures. They would need to have even more boots in the middle, boots on the ground that
01:15:29.500
they do. Look, they don't have an air base and they don't have a base in Israel, right? They don't
01:15:32.840
fight Israel's wars. Israel fights their own wars, but they have bases everywhere else. They still
01:15:37.300
haven't gotten out of Germany since World War II.
01:15:39.420
I think you're right. And that's why the best case scenario-
01:15:43.840
Is a world where Israel's decisive, kind of surgical military action precipitates a better
01:15:50.960
diplomatic solution that is more enduring than the JCPOA or the years without the JCPOA that saw
01:15:58.720
runaway tensions. Because then that's a world where Israel shows that they don't need direct
01:16:05.160
U.S. military involvement to achieve some of their strategic military outcomes. And it's
01:16:09.440
also a world where the United States doesn't need to be further, more further militarily involved
01:16:15.080
in the Middle East after 30 years of boots on, still boots on the ground.
01:16:20.060
I have a question. If, hypothetically, say Donald Trump could snap his fingers and erase the existing
01:16:29.820
regime of Iran and their insurgent proxies in the region, should he do it?
01:16:37.660
And I'm saying this, my point is, if it was within the power of the United States to remove
01:16:45.500
Yeah, I can tell you why. Because as we've seen with the Abraham Accords, many of these
01:16:52.160
Gulf countries are wanting to turn over a new leaf. Even if their populations are still largely,
01:16:58.100
you know, maybe like more tribal or have more like Islamist beliefs, they are walking a fine
01:17:05.900
line and countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE and Bahrain and even countries like Jordan and North
01:17:12.020
Africa, they want to be part of the modern world. They want to reap the benefits of having good
01:17:19.560
relationships with the West. And if anything proved that, it was the Abraham Accords. Now,
01:17:24.040
these countries- To play devil's advocate, I think the Abraham Accords are so possible
01:17:29.040
because there is a united, Sunni, Israel, United States coalition against the Iranians.
01:17:38.320
I wonder, if Tim's hypothetical is true and we snap our fingers and the regime goes away,
01:17:43.680
what does the Middle East look like without that counterbalance that could provide the predicate
01:17:49.220
So wait, so let me say, so because the Gulf countries have these goals, right? What's the
01:17:56.340
biggest hindrance to that? You just said it. It's Iran. Okay? They're all threatened. They're
01:18:02.140
all threatened. Iran has been trying to, in conjunction with Sunni groups like the Muslim
01:18:08.300
Brotherhood, they have been trying to take out the Hashemite kingdom in Jordan, the House of Saud.
01:18:15.860
Um, they've been trying to take out the government of Oman, of Morocco, of, of, of Bahrain. I said
01:18:22.380
Jordan. Okay. So these people, is that true? Like actually, I, I obviously there's a conflict
01:18:27.640
with Saudi Arabia, but go look at, go look at the work of like Yorm Ettinger. He has literally been
01:18:32.140
done. This is his expertise. He has, he's former ambassador and, and anyway, he has literally been
01:18:37.040
documenting this for his entire career. I'll say, I, I don't, I don't want the Iranian regime to stick
01:18:42.380
around, but there is a world where, uh, you know, a perhaps feeble, um, you know, inflamed and angry
01:18:48.540
Shiite regime does some, some modicum of, uh, good by rallying the rest of the civilized Arab world.
01:18:56.680
And getting them to, yeah, yeah. Essentially. Yeah. Essentially. I see what you're saying and it's a,
01:19:00.960
it's a possibility, but what I'm saying is that the Abraham Accords are not some like cold peace,
01:19:07.320
like what happened with like, you know, Egypt and Israel or Jordan and Israel, where it's like,
01:19:12.400
they're kind of still playing both sides. And sometimes they, aren't they better? Right.
01:19:15.580
Aren't they better than that? The Abraham Accords, that is like real, real top down and ground up,
01:19:23.180
like peace building on all sides. Okay. And so once that, once that, once that infrastructure,
01:19:32.820
that architecture is in place, it's going to be very hard. If you take out a nation like Iran
01:19:39.400
and these peace deals have already been signed and they are in the same, you know, like I said,
01:19:44.280
there, it's not like a cold peace, like the peace deals of Jordan or Egypt, but it's more of the
01:19:47.580
Abraham Accords. Then that's going to be very, very hard to, to break up because you have it
01:19:52.620
happening on a people to people basis. Do we remember the Middle East before the Islamic regime?
01:19:57.140
Obviously it's not been great since, but before the Islamic regime, you had what, four wars between
01:20:04.300
different Arab states and the Israelis? Well, that was the whole, that was the whole, uh, period of like
01:20:09.320
pan Arabism and, and, and that the whole, yeah, I mean, that was like a, that was when, that was before
01:20:16.100
these Gulf states had essentially decided to give up their, you know, Sunni fundamentalist beliefs and
01:20:24.380
like come to the table and try to moderate and try to reform. Yes. I, I hear you. Even if they,
01:20:30.500
even if they were secular, even if it was like a regime, like regime, like Egypt, like, right,
01:20:34.820
he, they, they still had, they were still Arab. So even like the secular Arab states had these
01:20:40.280
fanatical tribal views. That's why I wonder if the true best, if the true best case scenario
01:20:46.020
is an Iranian regime that is still a Shiite Islamic Republic, but one that is closer to North Korea
01:20:55.860
in its geopolitical and economic relationships with the rest of the world, uh, genuinely isolated,
01:21:03.220
but still in existence and kind of under the thumb of this Arab Israeli coalition in the United States
01:21:09.740
that doesn't pose a threat to, uh, you know, to Israel certainly. And, and to the, you know,
01:21:16.840
to the regional, uh, counterbalance. I'm not willing to keep a regime. Like, I'm not willing
01:21:22.740
to be like, Oh, you know, keep this regime. I look, I think that's what, what has led us to this point
01:21:27.360
to begin with is these strategies of like containment. This is what Israel strategy has
01:21:31.940
been since like day one of their existence. It's ridiculous. It's like the, it's like the containment,
01:21:36.660
like, like the enemy I know is better than like the net. Like I think that has what has gotten in,
01:21:42.200
that is what has allowed October 7th to, to happen. Does the U S have the ground forces capable
01:21:48.280
for occupying Iran? No. Well, they a hundred percent do not. And also like, I don't think there's
01:21:56.700
anybody that would tolerate that. And even people who say we should like nuke Iran, I don't think any
01:22:02.860
of them would even the biggest war hawks. I don't think any of them would say. And the reason why
01:22:07.440
they wouldn't say that to him, the reason why they wouldn't say we need to occupy Iran is because
01:22:11.800
those people have some understanding of the differences between the Persian people and the
01:22:16.220
Arab people. Okay. Well, my question was just, if we have the forces to do so, the reason being,
01:22:20.680
it sounds like the tactical nuke statement about, we got a bunker bust and then nuke it is a big ask.
01:22:27.040
Like the, the goal being, Oh no, I mean, all we can do is nuke it. There is another option though.
01:22:32.680
Israel's proposed human intervention with commandos. However, if you want commandos to
01:22:37.460
go into Florida to actually start dismantling and blowing all this stuff up, you're going to have
01:22:41.640
to secure the entire region, which means you'll need a ground invasion first. Not necessarily.
01:22:48.220
How do you control the skies? I think that you pair, you pair drop some one way commandos into the
01:22:53.080
Florida to blow it up and then rogue one kamikaze themselves. Well, I think it depends how much
01:22:58.020
damage they've done before that takes place before, before the, the commando raid on Florida
01:23:03.740
actually commences. You will not be able to, I mean, but I could be wrong. I'm not will. What,
01:23:08.380
I mean, what is your assessment of that? I don't know. It is a theoretical possibility. I think it
01:23:15.120
requires probably the entirety of Israel's tier one special operations, uh, forces. I'm, I'm frankly
01:23:24.020
more concerned about, uh, what happens after they leave, you know, what, what is the plan? Like
01:23:29.680
you start smashing centrifuges with hammer, you know, like presumably this is, uh, uh, it's, I think
01:23:36.820
it's achievable in, in concept. If, if it is true that Iran doesn't have a robust air defense,
01:23:42.860
um, then, then I think, yes, it happens. But what, what it would look like theoretically,
01:23:48.940
let's say, is that Israel would focus precision fires and, you know, covert, uh, covert action to
01:23:56.920
what they call prepare the battlefield. And then, you know, some combination of, of airborne and air
01:24:02.720
assault forces, I think, you know, you would need hundreds of Israeli commandos on the ground.
01:24:07.720
Uh, and then probably what they call an outer cordon of more, more conventional, but still
01:24:13.500
special operations forces to prevent an Iranian counterattack. And then a whole host of, of air
01:24:19.700
power. I mean, it's a, it's a three or four, four day operation at a minimum. Uh, it's incredibly
01:24:26.480
risky. And I, I don't even have a good, uh, understanding of what Iranian military forces
01:24:32.540
exist around Fordo itself. Um, but I will say, I think it's probably, there's a higher chance of
01:24:39.460
success, even though it's much riskier with that than an airstrike. Cause, cause there has to be a
01:24:46.040
battle damage assessment assessment. I think, as you mentioned, Tim, uh, earlier in the show,
01:24:50.460
and that requires people on the ground, maybe it's intelligence officers, maybe it's an asset.
01:24:56.860
But, uh, but at the end of the day, all of this, a lot of these activities result in quote unquote
01:25:03.640
boots on the ground to figure out what the heck is going on in reality. Um, and so I, I don't think
01:25:10.880
it's, it's, uh, it's unreasonable for Israel to do this with commandos. I mean, that's, I think if,
01:25:16.940
if the Israeli military has a strength that is in surgical precision operations, uh, that,
01:25:23.420
that don't necessarily involve a commitment of sustained combat operations. So, um,
01:25:28.380
So let's just, let's just try this real quick. All right. So, uh, here's Google earth and,
01:25:33.660
uh, it takes 27 years for the stupid thing to load. Google maps is way better. All right. So
01:25:39.020
here's to Ron Fordo is just what it's somewhat self northeast of it. So there's the number two
01:25:44.480
on the ground there. If you see that blue shield, this right here, uh, to the left, sorry, I guess
01:25:50.060
this right here. Oh my God. I cannot. It's around there. It's yeah. It's, it's around that number
01:25:55.680
two. This is what our own home or home is right town. That's it's close. So, so, so they're saying
01:26:02.300
we are going to send Israeli commandos within driving distance of Tehran with 10 million people
01:26:09.520
and they're going to be able to waltz on. And one does not simply walk into Fordo nuclear facility
01:26:14.880
and destroy this. Well, if, if, uh, if you're, uh, no, they would, they would be dropping bombs as
01:26:19.660
well. Yeah. But if you're a historian of us military operations, uh, the first effort to
01:26:24.640
retrieve the American hostages from the embassy in Tehran was a joint special operations mission
01:26:31.380
called desert one, uh, that was not foiled by an Iranian airstrike or, you know, uh, enemy fire,
01:26:40.440
but it was foiled by a plane crash and a helicopter crash, uh, at a, at a, um, at a kind of loitering
01:26:49.520
area, an intermediate staging base in the desert of Iran, uh, that killed many Americans. It was a
01:26:57.180
colossal failure and embarrassment for the U S military. That's frankly left a huge stain and
01:27:03.040
extended the hostage crisis by probably another, you know, another many months. So it, it, it's not
01:27:11.840
even the fact that Iran might kind of kill Israel, Israelis with AK-47s or surface terror missiles.
01:27:17.320
I mean, just imagine what it would take to stage Israeli commandos. If you don't have the element
01:27:24.300
of surprise, then there's no, then there, there's nothing there, but you can see photos right here.
01:27:28.100
Don't forget about like the thousands of Iranians, the thousands that have been carrying out this
01:27:33.960
attack, this, this, this, this operation with Israel. My point is how, how, including the, the,
01:27:40.520
the now, uh, members of the Iranian military that have essentially defected and gone to, and,
01:27:48.260
and, you know, right. So, so just my point, like, how do you get human beings to Fordow with enough
01:27:56.260
time and resources, ordinance to destroy a deep underground military base, meaning they're going
01:28:02.020
to have to be carrying explosives in engineers, planting these things, detonating them and
01:28:08.020
escaping. It's a one way trip. So, so you're not, you're not beyond my, you have to, you're going
01:28:12.880
to have to invade Iran. This is, this is extremely close. It's around. It's a driving distance.
01:28:18.740
Can you find the nearest, uh, wait, why do you have to wait? But what do you mean it? Well,
01:28:22.720
of course they're going to, once you enter the country, you have to eventually, you have to land
01:28:26.000
planes in order to get stuff big enough to drop it by parachute and then go pick it up from wherever
01:28:31.980
it landed. I don't, I don't, like I would be surprised if I think you'd have to land a plane
01:28:36.800
somewhere. Right. So that's why I was asking Tim, if you could find an airstrip nearby because you'd
01:28:41.400
either, the, the, the mission is to either make an airstrip, uh, and that's possible, but very risky
01:28:47.380
or to find an airstrip that you can seize. This was the mission of my old unit where you parachute
01:28:53.320
onto an airstrip and then you create a, call it a lodgment or an area that you control that's big
01:28:59.540
enough where you can land plane, land planes and successive forces. Um, there, there, there's a,
01:29:06.760
there's a domestic airport, um, just North of calm. And then you're going to have a drive through a city
01:29:14.240
if that were the case. So, I mean, you're talking about securing these sites first,
01:29:19.000
which means you're not just going to airdrop some dudes in.
01:29:22.420
But do you guys not think that Israel, like, like, you guys don't think that Israel has
01:29:34.340
Sure, sure. But the point is this, Israel has stated, if the U.S. doesn't do it,
01:29:39.100
they're going, one of their options is human commandos infiltrating and destroying Forto.
01:29:43.080
So that doesn't seem to make any sense to me. I have no idea. I mean,
01:29:49.360
I think it would be, um, I think, I think it would obviously be a, an operation that involves
01:29:55.840
not merely, uh, you know, this, this, this deliberate, you know, um, uh, uh, commando raid
01:30:06.220
and, uh, and, and accompanying airstrikes, but also like massive cyber attacks. And, um,
01:30:15.080
that doesn't change that 10 human beings with guns will be in a firefight with whoever you sent
01:30:21.500
in by air. The point is knock out their electrical grid, destroy their gas stations,
01:30:25.960
do whatever you got to do. If you want humans in Forto, you have to secure the region. You've,
01:30:31.680
you've got to make sure nobody can get in. Like you're saying, at least landing one plane.
01:30:35.560
I understand, but the risk is, is only, but the risk is that it's, it's the IRGC. I mean,
01:30:43.700
I disagree. Partisans. I mean, uh, in your experience, what do you think the likelihood
01:30:49.920
of local militia just rising up if, if, if U S or Israeli troops are landing and, and no way,
01:30:56.060
I, I don't know. Why not? Why not? Why not? I just don't think so. Because I mean,
01:31:01.200
the, what do you think would happen? I guess, cause I look, I don't want to, I don't want to
01:31:05.380
sound so sure. I'm my father's daughter. If a plane flew over any rural area of the United States
01:31:11.020
and dudes with Iranian flags were flying out with guns, random hillbillies would be shooting
01:31:16.540
at them with pistols. That's because, because the, the population of Iran has a very different
01:31:21.200
outlook on this. And, and, and I don't know the Intel I'm getting is. You'll be greeted as
01:31:26.740
liberators. The poll. Israel's invading. Hooray. No, no. I think, I think that, well, look,
01:31:32.960
here's, here's the breakdown that they'll, they'll tell you. And then what the Intel that I'm getting
01:31:37.220
is slightly different, but the breakdown that they're saying is that, that they say,
01:31:40.720
and all the, you know, websites and everything is that like 80% of the population is supportive
01:31:48.980
of Israel. Supportive, not just critical of the regime, but actually supportive of Israel.
01:31:57.920
So, but it also depends. It also, well, I mean, I'm sorry, but have you guys not been privy to like
01:32:06.340
the communication between Iranians and Israel, there was great reporting for the last, like
01:32:11.040
over a decade. I mean, it's, it's really stunning. And I feel like we're acting as if these are like
01:32:18.080
sand people or something and not like a highly civilized, sophisticated, educated population
01:32:23.900
that is the least anti-Semitic in any Middle Eastern country, including many Western countries
01:32:29.400
like France and Germany, where the overwhelming majority of the people have been trying to,
01:32:35.320
trying to take out this, this, this, this regime, and not just in, you know, not just in 2022 with
01:32:41.640
the woman life freedom protest, but in 2017 and in 2009.
01:32:45.240
The reason why they're having trouble, the reason why they're trouble is having trouble
01:32:50.860
is because they're largely secular, these people, and they don't have the organizational structures
01:32:55.440
that like Khomeini found with the, with the mosques in the mosques that essentially was able
01:33:01.320
But we, you have to think about the IRGC itself.
01:33:04.080
There, I think the New York times, it was the New York times, wall street journal today
01:33:08.280
or yesterday had a report that the rank and file of the IRGC, that's where you find the,
01:33:16.440
And so they're the guys with the guns, perhaps they, you know, they're still alive.
01:33:20.900
I don't, I don't believe for two seconds, the majority of, of Iran supports Israel.
01:33:26.620
Um, that, that's why I think there, there is still, it's, it is not a.
01:33:35.580
Because they're currently being bombed by, by, by Israel.
01:33:52.500
They're, they're not, they're not bombing civilians.
01:34:00.260
The idea that a foreign country will bomb your country and you'll be like, yay, is stupid.
01:34:06.380
It doesn't matter if it's military or otherwise.
01:34:09.160
The idea that our military, any in the world, gets bombed and we go, hooray, finally it happened.
01:34:18.260
And this is, I've, I've seen a lot of these videos now.
01:34:20.360
There is a contingent of Iranians who were supportive of Israel.
01:34:24.320
And now they're worried, even Iranians in the diaspora.
01:34:28.060
True, and they're Americans who support, who support Hamas.
01:34:32.040
Imagine, imagine Iran playing videos of Hamas supporters.
01:34:35.520
And being like, look, America actually supports Hamas.
01:34:37.800
Tim, the people, the Iranian, like, diaspora that I speak to, almost all of them still have family there in Iran.
01:34:55.840
They're marching in the street in New York holding signs saying, stop bombing my home.
01:34:59.540
Well, and there's, have you seen those protesters?
01:35:04.920
You think that Iran has not activated their whole, like, propagandist network on behalf of the regime?
01:35:17.580
Like, you're sitting here right now trying to convince us that 80% of the people of Iran are supporting Israel?
01:35:24.840
Well, that's, look, that's just what all the polls show on the internet.
01:35:30.800
That's what we will be greeted as liberators means.
01:35:35.840
You are not going to bomb a foreign country in any capacity, be it industrial control systems or missile sites, and have the civilian population of the country cheer for you.
01:35:44.000
I just, Tim, I wish I could literally just call up people right now and be like, talk to him, Tim Pool, Iranians.
01:35:52.600
I wish that, because they could tell you what they are hearing from people on the ground in Iran, or they are on the ground in Iran.
01:36:01.800
I am disinterested in magical logic based on anecdotal statements.
01:36:06.580
There is a simple logic to all of this, and that is, if you're actually trying to convince people that a nation will overwhelmingly support the country bombing them, that is an absurdity.
01:36:20.000
Like, sometimes it is, I guess, but no, people know it's not.
01:36:22.800
But it is, but, like, it is true that, like, right away, Iraq, the Iraqi people were like, yay, Americans are liberators.
01:36:31.760
And then within a year, it was like, oh, shit, they really fucked this up.
01:36:43.360
I mean, you're talking about Arabs versus Persians.
01:36:46.120
You know, if there's a civil war, like, if we're talking about, like, the North and South Vietnamese or, like, the Koreas, and you said we'll be greeted as liberators, it's like, yes, by one of the warring factions.
01:37:03.080
There doesn't exist pre-existing domestic tensions of which we could take advantage.
01:37:07.620
But, Tim, you have to be caught in order to say something like that, you have to understand, like, the ethnic makeup of the country.
01:37:16.160
And you have to understand the position of, like, the different ethnic groups, like the Kurds and the Turkic tribes and the Awazi Arabs and the Azeris.
01:37:25.240
Like, you have to understand the positions that they have taken since Israel stopped, started dropping bombs.
01:37:32.680
A lot of these ethnic minorities, they have, you know, their councils and their spokespeople and stuff like that of this institution and this institution.
01:37:42.060
And a lot of them have put out statements in full support of what Israel is doing.
01:37:49.460
There's a difference between that and, like, taking up blocking positions to prevent the IRGC from counterattacking Fordow and the Israelis land.
01:38:01.620
You know, the combat power of the Iranian military is in the hands of people dedicated, as you say, to Israel's destruction.
01:38:10.580
I imagine if, like, Chinese communists were landing at, like, Martinsburg Regional Airport and bombing, which is an Air Force base, or it's a national, it's an Air National Guard.
01:38:20.920
Imagine if they, like, communist China, they bombed it, landed a plane there, and a bunch of dudes walked out.
01:38:26.320
I bet there'd be a bunch of leftists cheering for them.
01:38:28.280
Yeah, they'd be sitting there with signs being like, liberate us.
01:38:37.820
The point, you know, in this, again, this is why I think people are suspicious, is we're trying to make the same case that we can analyze a Middle Eastern country, you know, Southwest Asian country, in order to achieve and support military and geopolitical aims that are inherently unpredictable.
01:39:01.520
It's the discourse surrounding the case for intervention, to me, is based on a little bit of hubris around guessing what will happen in a world where we can't assume nor guess what will happen.
01:39:18.480
I think you're right, and I think I could fall prey to that as well, for sure.
01:39:22.320
But I think that the other side of that is there's also a possibility that you don't have hubris and that you're actually just making calculated cost-benefit analysis, you know, or, like, risk-benefit, you know, calculations.
01:39:38.100
And deciding that it's worth it, that the possible risk of, like, A, B, and C happening is worth it, is worth it for, you know, to stop the possibility of X, Y, and Z.
01:39:50.120
But the people who bear the consequences of decision-makers being wrong about that are going to be at least one generation of American and Israeli men who spend their 20s in this country, perhaps.
01:40:04.520
I just—I just—that's what happened to us already. It's—I mean, I was on the tail end of it, but it kind of defines my life, and a lot—and so we—
01:40:14.840
But, Will, maybe you're—but this is not—but this is a very—but not every situation is a rock. This is just a very different situation.
01:40:24.000
And I think people are traumatized by that, and so I think a lot of people are projecting.
01:40:27.340
I mean, I think that's the definition of fear-mongering, right? Fear-mongering about World War III or about that this is just going to be, like, another—a rock.
01:40:34.020
I don't think you're doing this because I think you actually have some, like, thoughtful, nuanced analysis, but I think a lot of the voices that are screaming about that on social media, like, that is the definition of fear-mongering.
01:40:44.440
Like, claiming Iran will get a nuke and start nuking people?
01:40:50.600
It's fear-mongering to claim that Iran will get a nuclear weapon and use it.
01:40:53.200
No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying—I'm saying that people screaming about World War III and—
01:40:58.980
Right, like, if Iran got a nuke and started nuking people, it would start World War III, right?
01:41:06.120
No, just there—like, look at Tucker Carlson's assessment from, like, a few weeks ago.
01:41:10.360
If—he said it very clearly—the first week of war with Iran, the first week, not America's war, but just war, any strike.
01:41:21.700
Wasn't he talking about U.S. involvement, though?
01:41:23.880
Thousands. Thousands. He just—he was—I remember reading the newsletter and seeing that—or the post or whatever, and it was just, like, the first week of war with Iran, right?
01:41:33.620
A war with Iran, that this would be catastrophic—that this would be so catastrophic that our economy would be destroyed.
01:41:40.500
We'd have $30, $40 gasoline. Thousands of American troops would die within the first week.
01:41:50.560
The first—no, no, strikes. Now we do have war. Now we do have war with Iran. It was coordinated with Trump, as he said. I'm prepared to trust our president.
01:42:01.000
He's been the most transparent president, right? And none of that has happened.
01:42:06.620
That's my point. That's all fear-mongering because we've been so traumatized by what's happening.
01:42:12.220
No, saying that kind of stuff is fear-mongering.
01:42:13.680
You keep saying World War III is going to start unless we invade.
01:42:19.480
You said Iran would nuke trade routes and all these other things immediately if they got a nuclear weapon.
01:42:25.620
No, no, no. That's not what I said. I said the insurance costs and the risk models would change drastically.
01:42:30.120
And I asked you specifically, will Iran use a nuclear weapon if they get it?
01:42:42.280
You mean like an arms race and all that kind of stuff?
01:42:44.480
Like, does anyone in the world anywhere retaliate against Iran if they nuke Israel?
01:42:50.920
But to me, the World War III—but I've never once said that any—I've never said the words
01:42:57.020
World War III except in the context of other people talking about it.
01:43:00.840
So your point is Israel will get turned to glass by a nuclear bomb and Western powers will
01:43:09.360
Oh, you think the West will be like, we're going to destroy Iran now?
01:43:15.400
But I don't think—but Tim, these are two different scenarios.
01:43:19.960
What we're doing now is preventing that from happening.
01:43:24.220
Right, you are fear-mongering people telling them, unless we strike Iran, there will be
01:43:35.020
Well, I believe that whether or not Iran has nukes, they are still a national security
01:43:41.820
threat to the United States based on what already has happened.
01:43:45.380
Right, so are they going to get a nuke if we do nothing?
01:43:48.980
If America does nothing or if Israel does nothing?
01:43:51.380
If we just leave them alone, do they get a nuke?
01:44:01.700
Okay, and then there will be a response from the West on Iran, which will lead to a global
01:44:05.540
Okay, but Tim, I'm not sitting here saying, I'm not going online or on podcasts or on
01:44:12.340
the news saying, like you asked me right at the beginning, what should America do?
01:44:18.640
If I was fear-mongering, then what I would have been doing is been coming onto your show
01:44:27.500
But you did come on the show and say that Iran has thousands of proxies in the United
01:44:32.240
States waiting and ready to strike at any point.
01:44:40.420
You cast Iran as this global threat working every-
01:44:46.940
Which I think leads people to define this as fear-mongering.
01:44:51.200
If anybody has just been looking, okay, there are the, I am looking at the past, not the
01:44:58.340
I'm looking at what they have done in the past.
01:45:01.120
Already, people who are fear-mongering are talking about things that could happen in the
01:45:06.740
I'm only talking about things that we know has already happened.
01:45:10.160
And that is, and that, and that is what we should expect.
01:45:12.680
What Iranian proxy groups exist in the United States that have killed Americans?
01:45:16.400
I'm talking about the sleeper cells in the United States.
01:45:27.700
You said you're not talking about what they're going to do, what they've already done.
01:45:32.420
You said they will nuke Israel and that you're not talking about things-
01:45:36.940
So you're talking about things they might do, not things they've already done.
01:45:39.700
So your argument is that by me saying that they might nuke Israel and we have to-
01:46:00.600
I believe that they will, based on all of my research and based, you know, based on-
01:46:11.380
The issue is that you are, these are straw man arguments that you are excluding yourself
01:46:18.040
You're saying they are claiming bad thing will happen while you are also claiming bad thing
01:46:27.900
Like you don't realize you're telling people World War III is around the corner unless we
01:46:32.240
Then you're accusing other people of fear-mongering.
01:46:34.220
Okay, so you're essentially saying that both camps, people who would potentially support
01:46:40.480
intervention and people who never support intervention, are saying that there's going
01:46:44.640
to be World War III, both of them, and so they're both fear-mongering?
01:46:47.860
You said people like Tucker are fear-mongering by claiming that if we get into war, thousands
01:46:53.720
And I said, but you're claiming World War III will happen if we don't.
01:46:58.640
Okay, that is, I'll tell you how it's different.
01:47:01.280
Me saying that I believe that Iran will use a nuke at some point when they have a nuke
01:47:06.860
against Israel based on the fact that they've said this is so different than saying in the
01:47:12.940
first week that we have an Iran war, thousands of Americans will die.
01:47:22.380
One of them is laying out a specific scenario that they are certain of based on proof and evidence
01:47:31.100
that they clearly do not have, but they are trying to convince you of.
01:47:34.680
And another, and another, and another one is saying that based on what these people have
01:47:39.580
said, I believe that a general situation could arise that is a direct causation between having
01:47:55.680
One to me is making incredible, is associating things that you're trying to, you're trying
01:48:03.720
to take two things and you're associating them with nothing in the middle that's connecting
01:48:07.980
And the other thing is, is making a possibility based on an association that everybody would
01:48:24.080
Will, but even Will would agree with me that it's a ridiculous assessment to say that in
01:48:28.260
the first week of a strike on Iran, our economy would collapse.
01:48:34.980
I don't think it's ridiculous to say that in the first weeks of a US-Iran war, thousands
01:48:43.240
We have a very recent historical example of what we thought would be a fast, limited
01:48:49.620
military intervention growing into a quagmire that distracted US national security priorities
01:49:00.080
We're not just associating everything that happens in the Middle East with the war in
01:49:04.960
We're, I think, drawing some reasonable conclusions about what happens when we think we have the
01:49:20.760
I can't remember if it was a long poster on the newsletter.
01:49:24.200
I'm sure if you just Google like Tucker $30 gasoline or $40 gasoline or something,
01:49:31.020
Or maybe not because it's a newsletter, but I'm sure somebody posted the newsletter.
01:49:40.200
Look, the difference is, but the difference is, well, I'm not saying that we shouldn't
01:49:43.800
consider those quagmires in the past, but the difference is-
01:49:48.900
Let me, let me, let me, sorry, just let me read it.
01:49:50.300
A few days ago, Tucker Carlson predicted what would happen after a strike on Iran's
01:49:54.280
Thousands of Americans killed in the first week, collapse of our economy, $30 gasoline,
01:49:58.120
then a world war where China and all of BRICS joins in to support them, writing,
01:50:02.920
And then there's the question of the war itself.
01:50:04.480
Iran may not have nukes, but it has a fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles, many of which
01:50:08.000
are aimed at U.S. military installations in the Gulf, as well as at our allies at a critical
01:50:13.220
The first week of war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans.
01:50:16.200
It could also collapse our economy as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation.
01:50:22.820
Oh, he said could several times, just like you.
01:50:27.320
And like, who cares if it's in the first week or the fifth week?
01:50:31.080
This happening is a real possibility and a bad thing.
01:50:46.200
Um, and, and I want to clarify, I'm not saying your point about Iran nuking Israel is wrong.
01:50:52.620
I was only taking issue with you saying one side was using fear and the other side was
01:50:56.500
Well, I just think that there's certain, Tim, I think that there's certain like slogans that
01:51:03.340
And I don't think that they're based on honest assessments.
01:51:07.360
And I think like world war three, like is one, I think I'm not dying for Israel is another
01:51:13.540
And I think, you know, regime change is another one.
01:51:17.060
But those are strong ants that I don't, they've just, no, well, I'm, I'm not saying you're
01:51:20.460
doing this and obviously we need to consider, um, we need to talk about regime change and
01:51:24.840
But like people are now redefining regime, the way that they're using these words like
01:51:29.720
They're, they're, they're basically saying that now like any military action that results
01:51:36.200
in a different government is now like regime change.
01:51:40.240
Like they're, what's the opposite of fear mongering?
01:51:46.380
If we, whether it's Pollyannish, whether we strike Iran or not, literally nothing ever
01:51:52.520
Well, that was, I think Michael Knowles tweeted the other day, he just had a tweet and it
01:52:00.420
Well, I, I, I hear a lot of people kind of urge, urge folks.
01:52:04.380
I think they're talking about perhaps people like me who, who don't necessarily, who want
01:52:09.640
us to think long and hard about military, U S military intervention.
01:52:13.240
I don't, I don't think it's panicking to lay out the risks of U S military action in this
01:52:23.020
I don't, I don't think Michael Knowles is, I just think these slogans are being used in
01:52:27.080
much, in much the way, in a hysterical way that we often mock the left for.
01:52:31.620
I don't, I don't think World War three will happen if we bunker bust, uh, Iran.
01:52:36.360
I, I, I, I don't think airstrikes will lead to an expanded war because I don't see anybody
01:52:41.460
wanting to, China's not going to arrest Beijing over, over Fordo.
01:52:47.860
There'll be repercussions, but I don't see it escalating.
01:52:49.740
There was a lot of people in conversations on Tucker's show and Candace's show and stuff
01:52:53.540
like that, that we're talking about how Russia would defend Iran.
01:52:57.480
And I'm sitting there listening and I'm like, are you guys in?
01:53:01.380
Don't you think though, that if, if Russia saw the United States, let's say, uh, the
01:53:08.780
And we do drop a tactical nuclear weapon on Fordo.
01:53:13.180
I mean, there is no doubt in my mind that Russia has the, I don't know if they have the
01:53:19.340
justification, but in their mind, they have the logical justification to use a tactical
01:53:25.400
I don't, I don't think that's a very good possibility, but you guys are bringing scenarios.
01:53:30.240
You guys are talking about scenario, like we started this whole conversation talking about
01:53:33.920
a scenario that in my mind was not the, one of the scenarios that I was thinking in terms
01:53:45.600
It wasn't, it was a, it was a, it was using bunker busting bombs or maybe a commando raid
01:53:52.780
It wasn't actually dropping a nuke on, on Fordo.
01:53:58.300
Um, I think that things like that have, there's a different order of magnitude in terms of
01:54:03.360
the consequences for our enemies and for our allies.
01:54:06.680
And I think if, like Tim said, if it's, if it's just a strike or bunker busting bombs,
01:54:12.420
I think anybody who says that Russia would get involved over that is just so ignorant
01:54:18.640
about, you know, the bandwidth that Russia can handle right now.
01:54:21.780
And also Russia's relationship with Iran or Russia just said yesterday, they just said,
01:54:28.420
We're not even going to provide, provide you safe passage.
01:54:31.120
And then the Ayatollahs came out and they're like, we're never going to forget this.
01:54:35.260
I think, um, mutually assured destruction has been twisted beyond its original meaning.
01:54:40.080
And I don't believe it currently exists necessarily.
01:54:42.140
Uh, mutually assured destruction was largely in reference to the, the, the Soviet Union
01:54:48.160
And that if either fired nukes on each other, it would cause just every ICBM flying through
01:54:53.760
If the U.S. were to nuke Iran at, at Fordow specifically, I don't believe Russia would
01:55:02.080
I think Russia would fire a nuke in Ukraine if they felt it would give them an advantage
01:55:07.220
The idea that a nation would sacrifice its capital for some other nation, particularly
01:55:14.520
I don't believe they would either, but I think that there is, I think that depending on when
01:55:18.020
it happened and where Russia was in Ukraine, I think that could change their assessment.
01:55:23.200
I think there's nothing stopping from Russia, stopping Russia from using nukes right now.
01:55:28.220
I, I, there, no, no, no, no one in Europe or the United States is going to be like time
01:55:32.120
to go nuke Moscow because they bombed a battlefield or a rural area of Ukraine.
01:55:38.400
I, I agree with you, but that doesn't, I, I don't, I think you're still undercounting the,
01:55:43.020
the justification Russia would see to ratchet up.
01:55:49.540
Weapons that they feel comfortable using in Ukraine.
01:55:51.620
Yeah, Will saying that essentially Russia would be able to say to the world that even
01:55:57.040
though like they don't, even though they don't really care what the world thinks of
01:55:59.680
them, they would, they know that in that case they could get away with it.
01:56:05.560
It's largely about what trade they can maintain because what does global image really matter
01:56:13.600
And if they're seen as the first actor in a nuclear strike, they may get supplies cut
01:56:19.060
But no, then I would agree to a certain extent that there's a probability, should the US use
01:56:23.340
a nuke, Russia might be like, don't look at us.
01:56:26.460
But I, I don't, I don't imagine a scenario that makes sense where, you know, we nuke Iran
01:56:30.600
and then Russia is like, ah, and then they fire on Ukraine and then Pakistan start firing
01:56:37.500
But it would, but, but that's not how world wars usually work.
01:56:41.520
They are usually, they, they, they, there are usually periods where they're just, you
01:56:45.760
know, they're little regional wars and, uh, and there's just conflicts going on in all
01:56:51.060
these different areas, but they have been brought about because of some sort of action
01:57:00.740
Everybody should just fire all the nukes now because it's the argument I can't stand.
01:57:05.440
And then we can live like it's fallout, you know, you guys see that show on Amazon?
01:57:19.020
So interestingly, this, the subway system in Ukraine is like 300 feet underground.
01:57:26.920
And because, because of fear of nuclear war, man, you've got to go down so many escalators.
01:57:44.800
It's not a lot of time, but it is like, if you think about taking five escalators down to
01:57:49.440
get to the subway, that is like a ton of escalators.
01:57:52.220
It's a few minutes where it's like in New York, you run on the stairs in 30 seconds, you're
01:57:59.580
Not all of them, but they're like, they, they take care of their subways.
01:58:05.860
You know, I did, I actually considered it back in like 2014 or 15 because of how cheap it
01:58:10.940
is to live there and the time zone and the, the, like the news reporting, I was doing field
01:58:17.880
It's why a lot of American tech companies had software developers in Ukraine.
01:58:21.880
Because you pay them 60, $70,000 a year and they're Kings.
01:58:29.880
Uh, do you want to, any final thoughts or where people can find you?
01:58:34.960
It's just my last name and my first name switched.
01:58:38.600
So at Ray Akaris and yeah, that's basically it.
01:58:49.620
Check out the Claremont Institute and, uh, you know, think about how things can change in
01:58:58.020
I'm hoping this is a big ask Trump gets under the table and shuts it all down.
01:59:02.240
But, but I, I, I'm actually thinking based on the news that we're heading towards some
01:59:05.900
So we'll see, but my friends, we're going to be sending you off to hang out with our
01:59:10.760
So don't forget to smash that like button, share the show with everyone.
01:59:13.500
You know, we'll be back tonight at 8 PM for Tim cast IRL.
01:59:17.520
And maybe there'll be some news developments or maybe it'll be a goofy Friday because there
01:59:21.500
is no news and we're just going to, you know, hang out and have fun.
01:59:23.960
So, uh, you can follow me on X and Instagram at Tim cast.
01:59:26.540
Once again, share the show with everyone, you know,